You have been warned.
When I started this blog a long time ago I made it a rule to not have anything posted that contained profanity. It's not that I'm a prude or that I never use profanity myself in speaking. It's more to the point that many good old people who live in the same social movements that I do say truthfully that cursing, or cussing, shows a lack of discipline and makes you untrustworthy. Cursing or cussing in excess is almost always done by men and is used, mostly unconsciously, to create and maintain spaces that exclude women. And if I go around talking about my religion or my politics or trying to make things better for working-class people or women or LGBTQIA+ people and I'm cussing, then folks will surely call me a hypocrite and shut down---and they would be right.
But here I am making an exception. Ashley McBryde is famous, but I know many people who do not know who she is or who don't appreciate her great talents. She does some cussing, though, and I guess that she does some hard drinking if one of the clips below is to be believed.
Put that to one side for a minute. Ashley McBryde is the daughter of a preacher and she comes from the southern white working-class. She has the right to react to where she comes from and to deal with the ambiguities we all live with but that we may not grasp or acknowledge. Many of her songs and her videos show particular sympathies for women in bad situations. There is despair and cynicism and tragedy in some of her music, but love isn't far away. And this is genuine, as you will hear if you listen to the interview clip below.
When I first heard some of Kelsey Waldon's edgier music a few years ago I stepped back a bit because I wasn't ready for it, despite her great politics and her roots in Kentucky. I stepped back up to her music, but it took a while. Ashley McBryde pushes things quite bit a further.
Here is why I like and respect McBryde's music and why I'm doing this post. Her music does come from the heart, I believe, but it also takes us in unexpected directions. The songs Jesus Jenny and Shut Up Sheila have pleas in them that ultimately creates roads that carry us on faith journeys if we let them and if we're honest with ourselves. Put your false piety away and listen. If you're living in a working-class world you will feel at least some of these lyrics, and the sound of that guitar may touch your heart as it touches mine. By the time we get to Bible and A .44 and Stone we're reaching into our pasts and into our inner lives and the lives of those around us who are suffering. I have not included her song Gospel Night At The Strip Club, but I think that that song helps make my case here. I'm much more offended by the social conditions and loss of connection that we all live with that McBryde describes so well than I am by her language.
Sometimes someone comes along who throws away pretensions and, intentionally or not, says or writes or paints or sings something that regrounds us. Some of those people become saints despite our shunning and censorship, or perhaps because of our shunning and censorship and hypocrisy. Many of McBryde's songs help me reground. Her cussing makes a point, but listen to what follows and how feelings change in her songs and the hard reality that we live in is acknowledged and regretted.
Ashley McBryde's brother Clay died by suicide in June 2018. A song called "Stone" from her new 'Never Will' album pays tribute to him but also dives into her own emotions. This interview appeared on Taste of Country.
Jesus Jenny (Acoustic)
Shut Up Sheila (Interview + Performance)
Bible and A .44
Stone (Acoustic) // Fireside Sessions
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