Beyoncé über alles
The left's creeping cultural colonialism.
Everybody’s talking about art and culture these days,
, to name only two that I follow here on Substack. It’s not exactly like there is a culture war going on, not overtly, not yet at least, but that’s because the right doesn’t take culture seriously.1 Maybe it should because the left is gunning for them.This story is not exactly about that; it’s about something that has been bothering me since last year, and I’d like to get it off my chest.
Some months ago I heard country music playing on CBC radio, our (Canada’s) national broadcaster (a lesser version of NPR in the US). CBC never plays country music.2
What was playing was not your typical country tune. It was Beyoncé’s Texas Hold’em, which had been getting some attention down south.
The tune was undoubtedly hyped when it came out in the US, but it didn’t get much play here in Canada until just before the Country Music Awards. That must have been how CBC picked it up, AP newswire reports.
From the get-go Texas Hold’em struck me as off somehow. Maybe it was the instrumentation. Maybe it was over-produced. I don’t know, but the effect was that the tune sounded condescending, disingenuous, in a word, fake.
The song paints an improbable scene, vaguely urban, vaguely country. If it was supposed to be genre-bending, I didn’t hear it. Best I could figure was it was an attempt to invade and occupy the territory of the right, i.e. colonize, country music. There was a US election coming up after all.
I expected the song to be panned, but the “industry” paid its respects. It got radio play and made the Country Top 100 in the US, an important first for a black woman artist, but a weird accolade to one of the most awarded pop music stars in the world. The Country Music Awards weren’t fooled though, and gave it a pass. But then, this past weekend, the album the tune is on, Cowboy Carter, won Grammys for Best Country Album and Best Album of 2024.
The analysis
The lyrics of Texas Hold’em are a non-sensical mishmash: “bar, whiskey, hoedown, spurs” get inexplicably mixed up with “red cup kisses, sugar, boogie and bitch.” But the line “so park your Lexus (woo)…” is what really bugged me. Park your pickup maybe, or your Caddy (you know, the one with the longhorns on the hood). But no, this was uptown goes ghetto goes west. (Full lyrics and a legit, if lengthy, interpretation here, if you’re interested.)
A few critics picked up on the “fake” vibe: In a review for Variety, Chris Willman stopped just short of calling the song "genre tourism."
To me, the term “genre tourism” is being charitable. The song’s intent seems much darker, infiltrating a reputedly conservative genre in order to lace it with inner-city lefty whinging.
Craig Jenkins for Vulture praised how "thornily" the song "plays dealer with a stack of country clichés like wisdom earned in card games and dive bars but pumps them full of lyrics that would make a Grand Ole Opry audience sweat."[wikipedia ref]
I think Jenkins meant to say cringe, but was probably afraid.
“As an avid Beyonce lover, Texas Hold Em is laughably bad. Sounds like a mockery of country music even to a person who hates the genre.” - from Reddit: r/popculturechat
I’d venture to say Kamala Harris lost the popular vote in last November’s US election because of people like Julia Roberts trashing men in this TV ad and Beyoncé mocking the people of the heartland with this pretentious genre confused album. Nobody likes people who think they are smarter than you.
A single bright note
The amazing Rhiannon Giddens plays banjo on Texas Hold’em. She is a fantastic artist, deeply committed to authentic bluegrass banjo. It’s so sad that she got dragged into such a misguided project, but nobody can blame her for accepting the invitation.3
The final straw
The last stanza of Texas Hold’em shows what a fiasco the whole effort was:
Take it to the floor now, ooh
Hoops, spurs, boots
To the floor now, ooh
Tuck, back, oops (Ooh, ooh, ooh)
Shoot
Come take it to the floor now, ooh
And I'll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Baby, pour that sugar and liquor on me too
Furs, spurs, boots
Solargenic, photogenic, shoot”
It’s a basketball hoedown. And what’s with the pouring of sugar and liquor? Tell me ladies. And what is “solargenic”?
Some comic relief
Apparently, the melody of Texas Hold’em sounds suspiciously like the Franklin theme song (written btw by Canadian Bruce Cockburn). Check out the comparison: https://exclaim.ca/music/article/beyonce-texas-hold-em-sounds-like-bruce-cockburn-franklin-theme-song
Speaking of crossing genre boundaries, Madonna’s doing stand-up.
Beyoncé’s tune bears no resemblance to the very not-country tune with the same name by jazz pianist Joe McBride.
Also there’s the poor toothbrush ‘stache, to which I have to apologize for today’s images. Sadly ruined by history; or is it? https://www.twistedmoustache.co.uk/hitler-toothbrush-moustache
Uh oh, Beyoncé’s on the march.
For me writing about culture, if it serves any purpose at all, is about observation, evaluation and criticism. Whether a particular work of art, be it music or art or film, theatre, design or architecture, is good or not is not the point, or not the whole point; the cultural process is about appreciation, understanding - truth. There’s no space for imposition or blind acceptance. Criticism is intended to help us see and evaluate for ourselves.
Seeing for oneself continues to be a problem for the preachy, ideological left and nobody is going to trust them until they drop the pretences. This is no less true for the creative people who align themselves that way. Texas Hold’em takes a shot at the right, messing with ideological boundaries nobody even cared were there. Don’t get me wrong, if Ms. B wants to be “country”, by all means, but do it like you mean it, three chords and the truth.4
After improbably winning “Best Album for 2024” at the Grammys, the following Monday BEY-Z announced that she’ll take the album “Cowboy Carter” on the road, starting with four shows at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium in late April.” - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2025-02-03/grammys-2025-beyonce-cowboy-carter-album-of-the-year-recording-academy
Footnotes, y’all:
There are reasons for the right doesn’t take culture that seriously, one being that conservatives own the real estate that hosts culture and they don’t care what goes on there as long as the rent is paid. Social justice is just as good for business as any other form of entertainment you might say. There are other, more complex, reasons of course which I hope to explore soon as part of my series on conservative aesthetics. A list of articles to date and to come is at the bottom of this post.
Not quite never. I think the last time I heard a country tune on CBC, it was a fairly traditional country tune by a black cowboy from Alberta, or possibly it was an Indigenous queer cowgirl from Yellowknife. But an actual country country tune. No, never.
I have nothing but respect for Ms. Giddens. Politics is very hard to read these days. That so many celebrity artists were involved in the album, including true country greats like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, makes it even sadder.
“A lot of country music is sad,” he [Willy Nelson] notes softly. “I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth—that’s what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.” - Willy Nelson in an interview with Dotson Radar in 2010. https://parade.com/49964/dotsonrader/willie-nelson-2/
"Three Chords and the Truth" is an oft-quoted phrase coined by Harlan Howard in the 1950s which he used to describe country music. - As always, you can trust Wikipedia.