Trace Adkins’ Song “Brown Chicken Brown Cow”

Down with Pop Country 50 Comments

I'm afraid to ask what happens after this...

I hate predictability. I hate predictability in music, and I hate it in human activity. And so here we are. Trace Adkins has put out yet another dumb gimmick song. I guess then it is my job as a country music hardliner to harumpf and huff over how bad it is, but in the back of my mind I know that is what everyone is expecting, and what Trace & Co. are banking on. Stir the pot. Get people talking. No pub is bad pub. Assholes like me aren’t going to buy his album anyway. As Trace said:

“I kinda pushed for that to be the first single. I said, ‘Let’s just throw a hand grenade in the room right off the get-go.’

The first thing you need to know about this song is that its writers, producers, distributors, and performers think that you are stupid. The song is about Billy Joe and Betty, who as Trace explains, have a real nice farm. He sings about brown chickens, brown cows, corn fields, slopping pigs, but of course, since these days less than 2% of Americans actually live this type of traditional farm lifestyle, he is not using these things to relate to people, he is doing this to disguise the fact that this really is a hip-hopish rock song, and that he isn’t singing to country folks, he’s singing to suburbanites that like to listen to this kind of smut as a form of escapism from their heroically normal lives.

Knock knock. — Who’s there? — Orange. — Orange who? — Orange you glad Trace decided to make a song out of a banal urbanism joke instead of a knock knock joke?

...and this

And white people, listen to me. When you start swaying back and forth in a pseudo-sexual way while making dumb “boom chicka” noises, you look beyond stupid. Don’t you know that this is why the brother says whitey ain’t got no rhythm?

This is awful. At least Taylor Swift tries to write good songs. Trace just dons a shit-eating grin and waits for the Brinks truck to pull in front of his mansion. This song has less artistic value than a nursery rhyme. And speaking of, who is this song targeting? When talking to GACTV, Trace admitted that he has a thing for catchy singles, and he knows who they usually catch on with:

…it’s been my experience throughout my career when you release stuff to radio, when it’s somethin’ that kids are gonna pick up on and like, it’s probably gonna do pretty good”¦

But wait. Talking shit about this song is exactly what Trace wants me to do. So forget about everything I said. This song is fucking great. I think it is an instant masterpiece of American music, and I think Trace is a rock star. I want him to autograph my girlfriend’s cleavage and fuck my sister. And all you parents out there, feed this extraordinarily uplifting song mercilessly to your children. Take advantage of the fact that their minds are like sponges, yet are too young to understand the song’s adult themes. Cram it down their little fucking throats incessantly until they repeat it like a trained parrot. Full speed ahead!

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