Taylor Swift

When I think of the name George Jones, I think of him belting out the lyrics, “I don’t need no rocking chair!….”

With all due respect, maybe he does.

He recently lashed out at two of the freshest stars in Country music, Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood.  He told the Associated Press, “they’ve stolen our identity.” And, he maintains, they need to give it back and move on to another genre. “They had to use something that was established already, and that’s traditional country music. So what they need to do really, I think, is find their own title, because they’re definitely not traditional country music.”

In another recent interview, he lashed  out at country radio – again, it doesn’t have what he wants to hear.  He said, “It’s good to know that we still do traditional country music. Alan Jackson still does it, so does George Strait. We still have it, and there’s quite a few of us that are going to hope that it comes back one of these days.”

The best I can figure is that George Jones and others like him wanted Country Music to keep on “crying in it’s beer” while, thankfully, in reality, it has gotten up off of the stool, dried its tears, and headed out for the dance floor.

If it had stayed the way he wanted, it would make about as much sense as he does these days.