• The Pursuit of Sadness:Lullaby of Country
• Richard P. Wheeler (bio)

*Winner of The Peter Loewenberg Essay Prize in Psychoanalysis and Culture from the American Psychoanalytic Association

The pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right promised in the Declaration of Independence. Driving one of America's primary musical traditions, however, is the pursuit of sadness. A country music anthem by Joe Nixon celebrates this pursuit: "Mother country music let your sad songs roll" (see the 1977 recording by Vern Gosdin). Those sad songs have been rolling out of recording studios, radios and dive bars, roadhouses and dance halls, honkytonks and front porches, and concert halls and stadiums, for as long as what is known as hillbilly music has been around.

Sad songs, certainly, are not the whole story of country music, which embraces a range of emotions, attitudes, and moods as broad and deep as that of its performers and listeners. Many of these songs, however, are focused on experiences of loss and isolation. This can include easy sentimentality, indulgent nostalgia, self-righteous clichés, or in-your-face defensive contempt for city ways that threaten a rural ideal with little or no relationship to lived experience. More deeply, this music reflects the hardship, poverty, and disruptive social and economic changes that shaped the culture of the rural America in which it is rooted.

The world of rural life and values from which this music emerged started disappearing before Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter family made their separate ways to Bristol, Tennessee, in 1927, to make their first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Rural life as the American way of living and knowing; the old country church as the center of social and spiritual life and truth; the unchallenged supremacy of whiteness as a racial norm, or of maleness as a gender norm; [End Page 641] economic and social stature of the family farm, and of farm-work as a primary occupation—these and many other traditional components of country living and country knowing have been displaced from the center of American life. The lives of many traditional country singers enact some version of this displacement. Although, until recently, most country singers have had rural, working class backgrounds, they have themselves, like displaced farm workers, moved from farms and small towns to cities to make their living.

The music of country singers who grew up in the rural southern culture of the twentieth century feeds off all these experiences. Devoted country music listeners are drawn especially to what they perceive as the depth, authenticity, and integrity of singers who capture the sadness of loss. This concern with loss is not, of course, unique to country singers: music, theater, and art in all cultures have long explored sadness and loss as fundamental components in human life. Still, loss and sadness play particularly prominent roles in traditional country music. David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren recognized this prominence when they named their effort to identify the five hundred greatest single records in country music after Ray Price's 1959 recording of a Harlan Howard song: Heartaches by the Number.

My focus in this paper will be on three men whose recording careers together span just over seven decades of country music: Hank Williams, George Jones, and Merle Haggard. I do not assume these singers represent all that is vital in the sprawling traditions of country music. None of these singers emerges from the great line of music that more or less descends from the hill country music of the Carter family and other mountain singers and musicians of the eastern states. Neither, of course, do they represent the vibrant contributions of women who have over the years made their way into the center of what for most of its history has been a male-dominated music industry. The lineage of these men is more closely connected with the music of Jimmie Rodgers, which emerged from the blues and tent-show traditions of southern Mississippi. Rodgers was a musical hero to Jones and Haggard, although Williams downplayed his importance to him. Williams' music is, however, like Rodgers', deeply indebted to African American blues, as [End Page 642] he recognized in acknowledging...

• 悲伤的追求：乡村的摇篮曲
• 理查德·惠勒（生物）

*获得美国精神分析协会的彼得·洛文伯格（Peter Loewenberg）精神分析与文化论文奖

The pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right promised in the Declaration of Independence. Driving one of America's primary musical traditions, however, is the pursuit of sadness. A country music anthem by Joe Nixon celebrates this pursuit: "Mother country music let your sad songs roll" (see the 1977 recording by Vern Gosdin). Those sad songs have been rolling out of recording studios, radios and dive bars, roadhouses and dance halls, honkytonks and front porches, and concert halls and stadiums, for as long as what is known as hillbilly music has been around.

Sad songs, certainly, are not the whole story of country music, which embraces a range of emotions, attitudes, and moods as broad and deep as that of its performers and listeners. Many of these songs, however, are focused on experiences of loss and isolation. This can include easy sentimentality, indulgent nostalgia, self-righteous clichés, or in-your-face defensive contempt for city ways that threaten a rural ideal with little or no relationship to lived experience. More deeply, this music reflects the hardship, poverty, and disruptive social and economic changes that shaped the culture of the rural America in which it is rooted.

The world of rural life and values from which this music emerged started disappearing before Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter family made their separate ways to Bristol, Tennessee, in 1927, to make their first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Rural life as the American way of living and knowing; the old country church as the center of social and spiritual life and truth; the unchallenged supremacy of whiteness as a racial norm, or of maleness as a gender norm; [End Page 641] economic and social stature of the family farm, and of farm-work as a primary occupation—these and many other traditional components of country living and country knowing have been displaced from the center of American life. The lives of many traditional country singers enact some version of this displacement. Although, until recently, most country singers have had rural, working class backgrounds, they have themselves, like displaced farm workers, moved from farms and small towns to cities to make their living.

The music of country singers who grew up in the rural southern culture of the twentieth century feeds off all these experiences. Devoted country music listeners are drawn especially to what they perceive as the depth, authenticity, and integrity of singers who capture the sadness of loss. This concern with loss is not, of course, unique to country singers: music, theater, and art in all cultures have long explored sadness and loss as fundamental components in human life. Still, loss and sadness play particularly prominent roles in traditional country music. David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren recognized this prominence when they named their effort to identify the five hundred greatest single records in country music after Ray Price's 1959 recording of a Harlan Howard song: Heartaches by the Number.

我在本文中的重点是三个人，他们的唱片事业总共跨越了超过七十年的乡村音乐生涯：汉克·威廉姆斯，乔治·琼斯和梅尔·哈加德。我不认为这些歌手代表着乡村音乐蔓延的传统中至关重要的一切。这些歌手中没有一个是从伟大的音乐线中涌现出来的，这些音乐或多或少地源于Carter家族的乡村音乐以及东部各州的其他山地歌手和音乐家。当然，它们都不代表女性的积极贡献，这些年来，女性已成为男性主导的音乐产业的历史中心。这些人的血统与吉米·罗杰斯（Jimmie Rodgers）的音乐联系紧密，后者源于密西西比州南部的布鲁斯和帐篷表演传统。罗杰斯是琼斯和哈格德的音乐英雄，尽管威廉姆斯轻描淡写了他对他的重要性。然而，威廉姆斯的音乐就像罗杰斯的音乐一样，深深地沉迷于非裔美国人的布鲁斯，[结束第642页]他承认承认...