5 Outrageous Country Songs About Relationships That Are Just As Absurd As They Are Accurate

There country songs seem ridiculous, but at their core - we all know their take on relationships is true! I mean, come on, is Brad Paisley really gonna leave his wife for a large-mouthed bass? Read on to see what I reel-y mean...

While it might be true that that is all Will Ferrell wants, most people really do want a perfect relationship. However, these are harder to come by than those airbrushed juicy hamburgers we see on TV, and country singers know it. In fact, United States marriage statistics show that there are over 2 million marriages in America every year, but 50% of them end in divorce. How can a relationship last?

The Huffington Post, "Laughter Is Sexy and Good for Relationships," and articles from Ph.D.-holders on Psychology Today remind us of a nugget of pure relationship advice gold: a little lightheartedness goes a long way if you want to have a balanced love life. But forget a little lightheartedness – these 5 country songs stand out for their intentionally excessive relationship humor, flooding country music's sea of drink-till-you-die-depressing love songs with tunes that reflect on relationships in a far more mirth-inducing manner. They are absurd enough to hopefully turn your giggles into guffaws, and by the end of this read, hopefully you'll have laughed hard realizing just how much truth about relationships is actually packed into these absurd songs.

“I’m Gonna Miss Her” (2009) by Brad Paisley

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Our protagonist certainly loves his woman, but he lets us know there’s another lover – fishing. He laments like this: “I spend all day out on this lake / And hell is all I catch.” Clever, huh? Well, things get rough for him when his lady swears she’ll be “packin’ all her things” and “gone by noon” if he decides to “hit that fishin’ hole today.” The absurdity of this song lies in its title – because given his choice between fishing and his lover, he all too easily decides, “I’m gonna miss her / When I get home.”

Brad Paisley is arguably the funniest man in country music, so songs like this are no surprise from him. If you want more, slightly less absurd relationship humor from Paisley, take a listen to "Waitin' On A Woman". Even so, he certainly doesn’t take relationships that lightly, as we can tell from his 11-year marriage, a relationship of which he says, “Failure is not an option.” "I'm Gonna Miss Her" is so absurd because Paisley’s listeners know he, as a committed husband, would never forsake his woman, but he just wants to entertain listeners with a tale whose basic theme is all too familiar to many couples. I’m sure many wives can hear this song and laugh with their husbands because they both know that they can laugh together at the fact that some hobby like fishing even once tempted to jeopardize their long-term love.

“You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” (1978) by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty

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This endearing duet has a title that makes me feel like this dueling couple is on the tipping point of divorce. But that’s until you hear the full line sung in unison by the both of them: “You’re the reason our kids are ugly, little darlin’.” Loretta and Conway bicker like an old married couple. Conway says, “you’re the reason I changed to beer from soda pop,” and Loretta retorts, “you’re the reason I never get to go to the beauty shop,” a much more frequented destination in her time. And the song even ends with Conway’s playful admission that the kids that are bald get that from him after all, so he didn’t really mean that his wife was the reason their kids were ugly.

Loretta and Conway hoped this song would make spouses all over laugh because they probably pulled that insult on each other at one point or another (I personally would not recommend it). But during the year it was released, 4 out of 5 married couples were in it for the long haul, compared to only 1 of every two couples today. Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her” intentionally talks flippantly about a couple splitting up, just so the audience will know that he is using all-too-obvious sarcasm – he really will “miss her” when he gets home and she’s gone. However, this “Kids Are Ugly” tune is sure to let the audience plainly know that Loretta and Conway are a bickering couple – but one that’s more obviously gonna stick through it, ending their verbal jabs by endearingly calling one another "lil' darlin'" like they’ve done with every repertoire of witty banter that has come before.

“Like My Dog” (2010) by Billy Currington

People always say you should marry your best friend. But Billy Currington’s got a point – a dog is man’s best friend. His dog never says, “why don’t you get off that couch?” and when he “leaves the seat up, he don't think that's rude.” While this is reminiscent of Brad Paisley’s classic side-splitter Ode de Toilet (The Toilet Song), Billy’s song is a simple petition for his woman to “love me like my dog does, baby.”

He released his hit “Like My Dog” in 2010, the same year that he was on record with Country Weekly as having publicly said that marriage was on the backburner because he had “just such a busy life that it wouldn’t be fair to be married right now and try to have kids.” So it comes as no surprise that his puppy love (literally) was good enough for him then. He strikes a chord with the above duet, listing off classic petty grievances that close couples are sure to hear and resonate with. When you’ve been together for even just a few years, humor quickly begins to come part of the powerful glue to keep a healthy couple together – there’s a lot of mistakes and stuff to laugh at by then, right? Just picture him coming home to his lover – he opens the door, and a well-dressed dog says, “Welcome home from work, honey!” with tail wagging rapidly underneath her poodle skirt.

“I Wanna Talk About Me” (2001) by Toby Keith

The stereotype holds that women talk more than men. While studies show that this isn't necessarily the case, there are certainly men out there who feel like their ladies talk their ears off. Toby Keith, in "I Wanna Talk About Me", lets us know just that – a dude still wants to have the chance to sneak a word or two…or more into the conversation. He says, "you talk about the troubles you've been having with your brother…and your crazy ex-lover," and he puts to death any idea we might have that she runs out of subject material since she also talks about her skin, chin, nail polish, hose, and "God knows we're gonna talk about your clothes." However, even though he says, "I like talkin' about you, you, you, you, usually…," there are times when he wants to talk about "me, I" and other ways of expressing "not you for once, honey."

Anyone in a relationship can chuckle along to this song because of the absurdity of the chorus in which the man becomes an egomaniac who now only wants to talk about himself. Anyone who's been in a relationship knows what it can be like to listen to the other person drag on and on, and Toby Keith exploits this truth for humor's sake in this song. This hilarious tune is similar to the other songs listed in the way it depicts a classic struggle within a relationship; however, it's different in that Toby Keith suggests a feasible solution – at least, more feasible than his wife loving him with the limited (albeit remarkably easygoing) capacities of a canine.

“One More Last Chance” (1992) by Vince Gill

Don’t let the sappy-sounding title fool you. A man comes home late with whiskey on his breath in Vince Gill’s song “One More Last Chance”, and although he wishes he could’ve opened the door to the wagging tail of Billy Currington’s dream dog, he instead finds his woman with the “good book in her left hand / and a rollin’ pen in her right.” The reality is that he knows he “drives her crazy,” but he promises her that he’s not “runnin’ ‘round on her” and really does just need another chance. Jealous for his time, she hides his glasses and his keys so he has to stick around with her, but when he catches wind of a good time going down at the honky tonk, he croons, “she might've took my car keys / But she forgot about my old John Deere.”

I wish she could have seen him on that thing – it might have helped him like it did with Kenny Chesney in “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”. Unlike Paisley’s song, which is so absurd because he writes it in a way that we laugh at the far-fetched idea of him actually leaving his woman, this song is simply absurd for his details that show how he goes to any length (even taking the tractor out) to keep cavorting about. I know couples who’ve been married over 40 years where the wife can tell a similar story about her husband, but she still loves him. In this case, we get the funny feeling that he’s probably run out of last chances, unlike in earlier songs we’ve looked at though. This song differs in that Gill is reflecting on their situation humorously, but his woman is probably (definitely) losing patience, so he’d be careful to walk that line of regarding his mischief with humor while his wife disagrees.

Conclusion

Relationships are just plain difficult. The reason we can listen to these songs and laugh is because there is something just downright true about each one of them – something that may irk us or our significant others about each other, whether talking too much, fishing too much, or even constantly forgetting to put the toilet seat down. But as with anything, we've just gotta learn to let these things roll off and laugh about them. These are simply things that happen when two very different people get so close, am I right?

Anyone who's ever been in a relationship hears the truth in these songs, and they know they can grab their love real tight, listen in, and laugh along. Why? Because it's relatable. And hey, since hindsight's 20/20, these songs are a great chance to grab some popcorn and grow closer together while laughing about the silly things that really get our goat.