The Country Music Formula

Growing up in South Carolina, I have a strong, unwavering love for country music. It is often cheesy and lame, but I love it. I can't help it. I will say, however, there is a clear formula for about 80% of all country music songs.

Take this Tim McGraw song for example:

(By the way, I hate this song and I'm really sorry for making you listen to it.)

First off, the song has to be about love. And the songwriter has to make you develop sentimental feelings towards the characters in the song, so they're usually children in the first verse. In this case, they don't like each other, the kid doesn't want the girl to go fishing yadda, yadda, yadda. This leads to the chorus where you take a simple phrase, in this case it's "don't take the girl." Then you have to make it fit into other situations for the other verses. It's usually two more. And then one of those situations has to end with either the demise of the couple or some tear jerking realization.

And that my friends, is country music.

Here's another song like it if you don't believe me.