Last month, The Oxford American published the debut work of author Josie Tolin. It’s called “Freezer Songs” and it’s incredible.  It’s the story of a young songwriter navigating the end of her last summer vacation before her sister leaves for college. It is set during the summer that “Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert finalized their divorce,” Tolin writes in the voice of Rachael, the narrator. That’s 2015 for everyone who’s keeping score. 

Shelton, by the way, is responsible for birthing such horrors as “Boys ‘Round Here”, which obnoxiously combines elements of hiphop and swamp country with a boys-will-be-boys swagger that would make Louis CK blush, and “Gods Country”, an absolute Death Star of that brand of post-9/11 country music that assumes jingoism, “Christianity” and “conservative” beliefs about race are somehow synonymous and a given among the country music crowd. (He also did “Ol’ Red”, which knocks and is cute, to be fair.)

Lambert, on the other hand, made the absolute tragi-banger, “Gunpowder and Lead” about a woman waiting for her abusive partner to get out of jail. She’s expecting him to come right home seeking revenge, so she’s holed up with a shotgun. When he gets there, she fucking kills him. 

It’s a genius way for Tolin to set up the story. See, you find out in the first couple of paragraphs that Rachael has a stalker whom she refers to as Fedora Man. He looks for her at the Jimmy John’s where she’s working, but her considerate coworkers hide her in the freezer when they see him coming. I’m going to spoil some of this excellent story, so you should absolutely go read it.

The story takes place in Southern small town, so the sound track is country, or else we wouldn’t be talking about it, would we? Rachael gets to the point of this post when she acknowledges a perhaps troubling trend with women country artists:

There are so many country songs by women where they exact revenge for being wronged by men or are forced to kill someone to protect themselves. That latter one referenced above is “Gunpowder and Lead”. Or is it “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”? The Chicks use poison in “Goodbye, Earl” (a song with an interesting history, penned by Dennis Linde, who also wrote “Burning Love” for that guy who got famous for doing a spot-on Professor Longhair impersonation while jiggling his crotch at teenage girls). Carrie Underwood goes absolutely ham on a truck (the baseball bat/headlights reference in the quote) in “Before He Cheats”. She poisons another abuser in “Church Bells”, and commits one other murder in “Two Black Cadillacs”. Doesn’t say how in that one.

So, there is a theme: that women are strong, capable and willing to do whatever it takes if pushed to their limits. And that they must be, because no one else will protect them.

I’ve heard these songs cited as examples of country music celebrating feminine power. (Kinda hard for me to find a good example right now, but I did turn up this article on feminist country songs that resonates better with what I’d say was really empowering. “Independence Day” is on it? Anyway.) It’s true, they call out the patriarchy for failing to protect women in the best of cases, and for being a threat in the worst. But, there’s something about this “Girl Power” sub-genre that keeps me from a full-throated endorsement of that interpretation. You very rarely find out what happens to the women after they’ve committed murder to save their own lives. It seems that in “Goodbye, Earl” and “Two Black Cadillacs” that maybe everybody just gets away with it and the dead shithead just rots. “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” sees a man take the fall for a crime that his sister committed, though he had wanted to do it himself. We don’t get much information about how she feels about that.

But, we get a little more info in what I’ll say is the most epic song in the sub-genre, Martina McBride’s “Independence Day”. This story is told from the point of view of a young girl whose mother sends her to a fair on Independence Day so that she can murder her abusive husband and burn down the house. It isn’t explicit, but the mother is maybe tried for crimes, but more likely dies in the flames herself. The narrator is sent to an orphanage. I don’t think this feels like female empowerment, but more like desperation and finally lashing out. Maybe the mom didn’t feel powerless, but she felt hopeless. They all, to me, have a slight vibe of… that. Maybe this one is just much more on the nose.

“Now, I ain’t saying it’s right or it’s wrong,” McBride sings, “But maybe it’s the only way.”

By the end of “Freezer Songs”, Rachael’s sister packs up and is driven off to Ball State by their dad. Her boyfriend at work, Benji, has moved on to a different kind of part-time job. As the summer comes to a close, all of her coworkers are replaced at the Jimmy John’s because they go back to school or whatever. So, when the Fedora Man comes in while Rachael is working the till, nobody recognizes the threat. She does not get put in the freezer for her safety.

After this, she goes to the freezer and feebly tries to destroy some frozen bread, then quits and leaves. No one chases her out or yells. 

Loretta Lynn’s song, “Rated X” isn’t about a crime committed to protect herself or in revenge, it’s just about what can happen to a woman’s reputation when she chooses to free herself from an unhappy marriage through divorce. The last verse is sort of spoken as the song fades out. She says, “Why, us women don’t have a chance… No matter what you do they’re gonna talk about you. Look down their noses. I, I don’t know what to think about it. Just give ‘em something to talk about, I guess.”

I guess…