Lyrical Feministing: Baiting Hooks and Masculinity

Down in Texas, country music rules the radio waves. Everyone loves it. Even I love it. But sometimes, as I’m jamming along in the car, I cringe singing along to some of the lyrics that go with those all-too-familiar power chords.

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way before my first post in what will hopefully be a series that will explore music, lyrics, and music videos and everything that they have to say (from my perspective, of course). I’m not anti-love, anti-family, or anti any other wonderful thing. But it’s going to sound like that sometimes, especially when I’m discussing country music. So just know that’s not what I’m going for and we’ll get started!

For my first post, I’d like to discuss Justin Moore’s new song “Bait a Hook.” So let’s dig in shall we? I’ve laid out the lyrics with discussion in between for your feministing pleasure.

(As an aside: It’s definitely worth acknowledging the heteronormativity of the song. This goes for just about every country song, but it’s important to mention because since it’s the heteronormative “world” Moore creates in the song (and video), I’ll function within that world as well to allow for more in-depth thinking about the song as a whole.)

Bait a Hook

heard you had to drive him home after two umbrella drinks

I’m a little upset by the conflation here of women as being the sole imbibers of “girly” umbrella drinks. And the reinforcement that if men consume those drinks, they lose a point on the masculinity continuum. Also, there’s a possibility (and this is stretching a bit here) that this lyric promotes alcoholism among men in order to prove their “manliness.” By that I mean, Moore seems to set up the equation of: drink more (liquor)  but don’t show obvious signs of being drunk and you too can be a man!

I heard he’s got a Prius, ’cause he’s into bein’ green

If “being green” means being perceived as less of a man, I’m simply terrified for the world’s environment.

My buddies said he saw y’all, eatin’ that sushi stuff

However, even though I find this line problematic as well, maybe Moore could be trying to subtly stop the overfishing of tuna with this one. I doubt that’s his purpose as he reinforces eating red meat later as being the end-all-be-all of manly behavior but a girl can dream, can’t she?

Baby that don’t sound like you, that don’t sound like love,
Sounds like it sucks…
He can’t even bait a hook
He can’t even skin a buck

And now we reach the lovely chorus, where a very strict equation for masculinity is set up. Moore is really giving vegetarians a bad rap in this song on the whole. I draw from the above two lines that Moore wants all his manly men to be very into fishing and hunting (and consuming said cache).

He don’t know who Jack Daniels is
He ain’t ever drove a truck

Here we go again with the drinking! Also, why might I ask is it necessary for masculine men to drive trucks when they get horrible MPG? When I see Hummers and trucks on the interstate I’m reminded that it’s songs like this and sentiments like this that socially stress men to get unnecessarily large cars for the terrain in which they drive (no offense to you ladies out there who have these cars, you’ve got your own reasons, I’m sure).

Knows how to throw out a line,
But not the kind in a field and stream book
No darlin’ I ain’t even worried, you’ll come runnin’ back
He can’t even bait a hook.

Alright, hold on a second there Moore. First, you’re telling (instead of asking) this woman that she is not in love and now you’re saying that because the guy she’s with can’t do all of these supposedly “manly” things you do that she will willy-nilly come running back (without thinking twice) to the supposedly more masculine man? Do you really think that little of women’s emotions and steadfastness in decision making? Or do you just think that much of your masculinity?

Has he kissed you in a hay field as the summer rain falls down?
Has he took you to meet his mama, back in his home town?
Does he drive the interstate, or does he take them old back roads?
Can he melt your heart with a country song, every good old boy should know
I didn’t think so…

Here I’m sort of gathering the message that country boy=manly man, making city dwellers always “less than.” I don’t have much to say on this one except that Moore seems to be alienating quite a large proportion of his audience in this verse…

Chorus

It won’t be that long, ’til you start gettin’ bored

Again with this assumption that woman are necessarily going to want to be with your idea of the more masculine man. And that we’re just that flaky.

I’ll be smilin’ on the river, reelin’ in one more…
He can’t even bait a hook
He can’t even skin a buck
Hell he don’t know who Jack Daniels is
He ain’t ever drove a truck
Knows how to throw out a line,
But not the kind in a field and stream book
No darlin’ I ain’t even worried, cause you’ll come runnin’ back
He can’t even bait a hook
No baby I ain’t even worried
He can’t even bait a hook

So you think that’s it right? I did too, but then Moore has this fun little monologue as the guitar fades out that is just the icing on the cake:

Now you’re the one that’s gonna be sorry when you’re headin’ to get tofu and he has a flat tire on his foreign car and don’t know how to change it and you get your new gucci shoes wet and you’re mad and irritated…I’ve seen you irritated and I’m tellin’ you better him than me actually.

Woah, woah, woah there Moore. More hatin’ on the vegetarians, are we? And apparently it is simply unacceptable if a “man” doesn’t know how to change a tire and we (women) must get our gucci shoes wet. Let me imagine a possible world for you Moore, one where women sometimes wear *gasp* tennis shoes, or worse yet, BOOTS! And they get out of the car and help change the tire, or even do it all by themselves! I know, it’s crazy, but work with me here.

The crux of my issues with this song seem to lie mostly in Moore’s construction of the image of masculinity and his reference towards women solely resting on their flakiness as partners in relationships (not to mention our supposed inability to change tires).

I’m not trying to kill the spirit of country music (or any music genre, really) but I find music on the whole to be a wonderful way of reinforcing/subverting societal norms so it kills me a little to see such a strict definition of what is “manly” playing out in “Bait a Hook.” To be consistently reinforcing Moore’s definition as “The Norm” relegates all who lay outside of his definition as “less than”, which is a scary place to be. It’s a place where bullying happens because you’re a young male vegetarian who likes art or you’re a teen girl fascinated by mechanics. People should be able to be whomever they want to be without fearing violence or ostracism because they don’t conform to what society expects of them and Moore’s song isn’t making a world where that is more of a possibility.

Well that’s the little after-school special ending that feels appropriate for this post. I’ll be back with more musical fun soon! Until then, enjoy singing along in the car!