'It was a PhD class to listen to this album.'
Getting nerdy about Beyoncé!
Coming at you on a Tuesday because Sunday was Easter, and Monday was the LSU/Iowa game, which I am still depressed about. I like to think that Beyoncé, the subject of this newsletter and a fellow descendent of Louisiana, was also rooting for the Tigers….
Happy Easter to all who celebrate! As Beyoncé says in AMERIICAN REQUIEM: “Now is the time to let love in.”
Every Lent and Easter season, regardless of where I’m at in terms of a personal faith journey, I reread some of my favorite poems by T.S. Eliot: “Ash Wednesday” and “The Four Quartets.”
The thing about T.S. Eliot is he rewards repeat readings. Or, maybe not “rewards” so much as “demands”? His writing is rich—thick—DENSE—with references, allusions, and historical themes. To really understand it all, you’d need to get a PhD. I don’t have one of those, but over the years, I’ve studied, read articles, listened to lectures, etc., to understand the poems better. Each time I reread them, something new invariably jumps off the page, and favorite passages greet me like old friends, reminders of former revelations.
It’s kind of like when you go to an art museum and they encourage you to move around the room to take in a painting. You notice that not only does a painting change from different angles and distances, but as you get closer, it gets more complex. You see that that section of yellow isn’t just yellow; it’s gold, saffron, amber, mustard, bright lemon.1 You see that the brush strokes aren’t flat, they’re ridged and rippling.
It’s similar with poetry, with T.S. Eliot: There are the words you see and read, but the more you study it and look at it and consider it, the more layers of meaning and information you realize are hidden there.
And yes, if you’re wondering where all this nerd sh*t is going, you guessed it: This is also the correct way to approach a ✨Beyoncé album.✨
Before we nerd out on Bey, though, I would sincerely like to know: Where have you experienced those moments? Of being hit with the profoundness of something. Of returning again and again for a richer experience, finding that the closer you look and the more familiar you get, the more meaning there is? Your answer might be as simple as “Rereading Corduroy!” or “Looking at a flower yesterday.” [Oh wait, those are just more of mine.] I’d love to hear!
COWBOY CARTER — by Beyoncé
First, I am going to wax philosophical / vulnerable about this album. If you don’t care for gushing and nerding out, just scroll down to where I’m listing my favorite tracks and doling out superlatives!
“Like, it was a PhD-level class to listen to this album.”
-A friend in my DMs the day after COWBOY CARTER dropped
Upon first listen, Cowboy Carter is aurally [auditorily?] astonishing. The vocals, the beats, the earwormyness — it’s just superbly listenable and danceable music.
And, you know what? That would be enough! Writing some of the best music and most fun dancey beats I’ve ever heard? Making this Louisiana girl’s feet want to move like the ancestral rhythms are real [and not merely a genetic disposition for being over-excitable]?? That’s enough of an accomplishment!
But Beyoncé really said: Let’s do more.
Because this album is also DENSE. Dense with instrumentation, genre-mixing, interpolations [which is kind of like the musical version of a literary allusion?], references, features, winks, nods, historical research. Beyoncé says this album came out of an experience of not feeling welcomed [at the Country Music Awards, specifically], and she took that experience and turned it into a manifesto: About the roots of American music and telling the story of the invisible, oppressed, or forgotten people who gave us the best of our culture; it’s about the struggle for acceptance, about the journey of accepting and rooting herself in something real, about how music binds us together, about the power of motherhood, the violence and grace of justice and love and partnership. It’s a lot!
And every choice that goes into the album has a purpose.
For example, in an album constructed to refute the idea that Black women don’t belong in country music, she includes a recording from Linda Martell, the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Martell, too, faced racism and exclusion when she moved from R&B and soul into country. The song following the Martell recording, “YA YA,” is perhaps the most genre-rich of the whole album. Another example: The second song is a cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” which Paul McCartney says he wrote in part as a response to learning about the “Little Rock Nine.” I mean, did you know that?? I didn’t! You can hear “BLACKBIIRD” as simply a gorgeous cover of a classic or you can take a closer look and see she is also weaving in history and meaning and remembrance. Or, how allegedly the percussion on “RIIVERDANCE” is Beyoncé using her acrylic nails like Dolly Parton and Patti LaBelle on The Dolly Show in the 80s.
And those are just the obvious ones! You’ll hear so many familiar motifs and notes and melodies that you realize are intended to add another layer of meaning through the reference. [Even the Beach Boys make it in here!]
The album isn’t “country” so much as an experiment with “Americana musical traditions” — which is to say, almost everything. lol. At the same time, it still sounds, above everything else, like a Beyoncé album.
If you’re not a big Beyoncé listener or you’re just a casual fan of the hits, you may not realize that this isn’t new territory for her: Any Beyoncé project has these layers. Until Cowboy Carter came out, her 2016 album “Lemonade” was probably her richest display yet. It’s a genre-crossing, poetry-wielding epic narrative that, at one level, is about marriage, but when you zoom out, it’s also the story of humanity and Black history, about the journey from subjugation—by other people, by oppressive forces, by our own rage and trauma—to freedom.
Lemonade is among the best albums of our lifetime. To me, Lemonade feels like a tapestry, where every word, sound, lyric, or visual is threaded tightly to the next, weaving a whole with a shared purpose in every strand.
Cowboy Carter feels more like, let’s say, a firework, where every song and sound explodes out into a vibrant, chaotic, bombastic, thematic display. I don’t know if every thought is connected, but it’s all fueled from the same starting point: Telling the story of Black music, the perspective of Black women, the story of America, of family, of hurt and violence and love and creation.
There’s a lot going on here, y’all!
21 “Cowboy Carter” Superlatives
Just some awards to hand out — as if I have the authority!
1. Best for listening in the dark at full volume with noise-cancellation headphones:
AMERIICAN REQUIEM
2. Most country sound:
TEXAS HOLD ‘EM
3. Most spiritually country:
DAUGHTER
4. Most ‘Song of the Summer’:
BODYGUARD
5. Most sobbing:
PROTECTOR
6. Most didn’t-know-I-needed-this-cover-but-I-did:
BLACKBIIRD
7. Best duet:
II MOST WANTED with Miley Cyrus
8. Partying the hardest:
YA YA
9. Slickest:
TYRANT
10. Most Irish:
RIIVERDANCE
11. Most talked-about:
JOLENE
12. Most reminiscent of Beyoncé (self-titled):
II HANDS II HEAVEN
13. Most had me raising my II hands II heaven:
JUST FOR FUN
14. Best transition:
AMEN back up to American REQUIEM
15. Most old-timey rock and roll sound:
OH LOUISIANA
16. Most Louisiana sound:
AMERIICAN REQUIEM (thanks in part to Jon Batiste)
17. Most Post-Malone-is-just-grateful-to-be-here:
LEVII’S JEANS
18. Most Italian Opera:
DAUGHTER
19. Most hip-hop rodeo:
SPAGHETTII
20. Most Song of Solomon meets vengeance-Psalm vibes:
SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIN’
21. Most cinematic:
16 CARRIAGES
My Faves After the First Few Listens
This was hard to narrow down. I’d love to know yours!
16 CARRIAGES
PROTECTOR
TEXAS HOLD ‘EM
BODYGUARD
JUST FOR FUN
II MOST WANTED
LEVII’S JEANS
YA YA
TYRANT
That’s all for this week! Thanks for letting me gush, for joining a day of pure enthusing. We can complain about things some other time! I’d love to hear your favorite songs from the album, your most transcendent art moments, and all your thought.
I sound like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada talking about “cerulean.”
Favorites from my first listen: Blackbiird, Tyrant, II Most Wanted, 16 Carriages.
Helllllllzzzzz yes!!!!!!!