I know I live in the Midwest and that I should be used to it by now, but I just cannot stand going anywhere—a restaurant, a gas station, a store—and having country music blaring at me. It would be different if it were from ten or twenty years ago, when the song might be about Folsom Prison or the lights going out in Georgia, but today it’s largely—with a few exceptions—just as bad as listening to misogynistic rap music. No thank you.

It didn’t use to be this bad; I know it didn’t. I can cite dozens of places—the bowling alley, the pizza parlor, the store, the gas station—that once played either soft, easygoing music (believe me, I would rather listen to Steely Dan than Toby Keith, given the option) or the hard rock that attracted you there in the first place. One bowling alley even played the music directly from a local hard rock classics station, which I loved. Now I can’t go anywhere without listening to people riding their cowboys to save horses.

Many establishments claim that this is more “wholesome.” Ahem. When someone declares he wants to put a boot in someone’s a** because it’s the American way while we are trying to eat dinner, how is that considered wholesome? And my little girl hasn’t asked what riding a cowboy means just yet, but when she does, am I supposed to tell her it’s similar to a piggyback ride?

Make no mistake: This country wave is not about wholesomeness in the slightest. I am not sure what it’s about, exactly; maybe selling religion and fear and nationalism and self-loathing and misogyny and sex all in one. OH—that IS the American way!

I once quit a job at a local gas station/store just because I could not stand the music played there. It’s one thing to buy your gas and grab a Coke; it’s another to have to hear it all day. Now I make a point to simply not frequent establishments if I know they play this abysmal music, especially if I know I will have to spend more than ten minutes in the place. It would be bad enough if I simply didn’t like the music; but somehow it’s worse, remembering that I grew up loving Garth Brooks’s ode to gay rights and Johnny Cash’s guttural, dark lyrics only to listen to the garbage played today.