In the latest installment of Dispatches From a Guy Trying Unsuccessfully to Sell a Song In Nashville, our hero realizes it’s going to take more than six clasess to learn how to write a good country song.

In every case, it would turn out—and I would be surprised every time—that I really had no clear idea of the story I was trying to tell with my song, no fresh, simple take on a universal experience. I thought I was ready, but before class ended each week I’d admit that I’d driven down with a song that was country in the same way that saying, “Sacre bleu! Haugh-haugh-haughnn!” while twirling a small invisible mustache was speaking French.

After class I would drive to the Bluebird, a little bar in Nashville where songwriting successes perform—midway into one of their verses you can usually feel the whole audience sort of slip into realizing they know this song from the radio, sort of like when your car shifts from first to second gear: if you’re paying attention, you can feel it.

Especially when you’re sitting there alone.

Previously: Why You Hate Modern Country.

In the second installment of McSweeney’s Dispatches From a Guy Trying Unsuccessfully to Sell a Song In Nashville, Charlie Hopper succinctly breaks down the Six Things that prevent people like us from “Enjoying A Well-Crafted Modern Country Song.”

1. It isn’t ambiguous.

2. Its unironic sentimentality is unsubtle.

3. Its perfect production values are at odds with its pretense of simplicity and down-homeness (as opposed to, say, the perfect production values of a really fun hip-hop or pop song that somehow express opulence or exuberance).

4. The singer is not trying to soften his or her Southern accent and might be playing it up, which is an issue for you, because it causes you to assume the singer has conservative views, which perhaps you do not share. Those views (or their corollary, an unwarranted display of defiance) may, in fact, be the subject of the song, or the song promised by the DJ to be coming up after a commercial break.

5. Your friends would bully you if they knew you could sing along with Taylor Swift, so you resist any situation in which you might even accidentally risk exposure.

6. Knowing that some large number of modern Nashville acts sing songs they haven’t written themselves, you see it all as “product,” something for sale, and that vaguely offends you.

Nail. Head. Guilty on all charges.

The whole thing is great though, so go read it. Dispatch 1 is good too if you wanna catch up.

McSweeney’s publishes A Subway Performer’s Application Essay to Juilliard by Karl Frankenfield:

But more than inventive, I bring an unparalleled originality to my performances—I do things with music that other musicians wouldn’t dream of. Would an average musician think to play never ending repetitions of three note scales, or to hold out off-key notes for minutes on end? No. I’m not just some artistic hippie; I get how this industry works. I’m a professional paid musician. I’ve been a regular performer near the Lincoln Center and outside of Madison Square Garden. My audiences love what I do. Sometimes, people will be so overcome with emotion that they’ll even pay me to stop. Beauty is very powerful.

If I were on the admissions board, I’d totally let him in.

McSweeney’s has Fifty Years of Popular Songs Condensed Into Single Sentences.:

Patsy Cline, “Crazy”
I want to do it with you so much I’m going fucking nuts.
– – – –
Frank Sinatra, “Strangers in the Night”
I’m drunk and I want to do it with you.
– – – –
Little Richard, “Good Golly Miss Molly”
I’m doing it with Miss Molly, and she’s totally into it.

The list gets better and better so be sure to read the whole thing.

Via lhb.