3 Country Music Ballads With Stories as Good as Classic American Novels

Lots of the finest country music songs in the canon are rooted in the rich tradition of American literature. That being so, some of the ballads that reside under the genre’s umbrella arguably come close in rich storytelling to classics by Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. To remind you of this fact, here are three country music ballads with a story as good as a classic American novel.

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“Pancho and Lefty” by Townes Van Zandt

If you read our site frequently, this might seem like a cliché answer. However, how could we not feature this ballad on our list? To many country music fans, this is one of the greatest ballads in the history of the genre, and Townes Van Zandt is simply one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

If you’ve never heard this song, we’ll spare you the details so you can come to find the nuance on your own accord. Although, just know that the subject matter of this song and the story it tells matches books by writers such as Mark Twain and Cormac McCarthy.

“Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn‘s career and likeness were, more or less, built around this one song. Consequently, many people seemingly know the song as just a Loretta Lynn song, and not as an insightful and societal story about rural America during the Great Depression and WWII. The single is indeed an autobiographical tune, but Lynn’s story speaks for many; thus articulating the general livelihood and values of the general American of the day and age.

Songs often romanticize or embellish certain elements of reality for artistic purposes. However, that is seemingly not what Lynn does in this single, as it reads like a creative journalistic report and sheds light on the reality at hand. And not just on the surface, but what also lies underneath the conditions of rural America in the 30s and 40s.

“West Nashville Grand Ballroom Gown” by Jimmy Buffett

Now, the genre of this song can be and likely has been contested, but the subject matter heavily associates itself with the country music scene due to the backdrop of the song being Nashville. Nevertheless, Jimmy Buffett‘s ballads tell a timeless tale about youthful rebellion, societal constructs, and a rambling solution.

It sounds like a fairly cliché tale, and it is to an extent, but the song captures a moment in American history in which adopted values interject with natural ones. Now, we could be overreading this one, but there is seemingly a lot to explore in this song. Hence, we added it to our list.

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