High Lonesome: Sounds and Narratives of Country Music

Rationale and Purpose of the Module: This is an elective module for second, third or fourth year BA Irish Music and Dance Students interested in issues of ethnicity and identity as imagined, expressed, and performed through the genre of Country music in Ireland and in the US. Understanding this genre as a vernacular tradition in its particular regional/national contexts will shed light on what is at stake for those who perform and consume country music.

Syllabus: Students will look at the phenomenon of country music, placing particular emphasis on connections between Ireland and America as manifest in the sounds and narratives of this genre. The course will involve gaining a greater understanding of the vernacular tradition(s) of country music (i.e. country music in Ireland), as well as more generally concerned with definitions of the genre and how and where these definitions hold up or break down under scrutiny. Focusing on `narratives of country music will involve looking at song themes and topics (such as loss and desire, myth of the West, the open road, etc), as well as inviting a greater understanding of the genre itself and the kinds of musical/historical/political/cultural pathways it has and continues to follows (spiritual dimension, ethnic profile, national characteristics, gender roles, song construction). Ultimately, students will concern themselves with the questions of how identity is imagined, constructed, maintained, and negotiated though sound, sentiment, and narrative song performance and its subsequent reception in historical and current contexts.