Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter is Kinda Country

And it's all the better for it.

Genres are a funny little concept, aren't they? In theory, they have a simple definition that's easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.

These are words spoken by Linda Martell, the pioneer of black country music, to introduce the 12th track of Beyoncé's album Cowboy Carter entitled "SPAGHETTII." It's a wonder it takes nearly halfway through the record to put the words to what you've been thinking if you've listened to everything before it. It's billed as Beyoncé's first country album, though there be only a few fiddles or banjos in earshot. It's kinda country, fusing the storytelling styles of those songs with the rhythm and blues so often segregated from its sound. Finding inspiration from icons spanning the full history of country music, from Linda to Dolly to Willie to Sister Rosetta, it's a record about how no genres or artists or even single songs are just one thing. Or how they don't have to be. Or shouldn't.

And it's excellent. 

There's a reason "Texas Hold 'Em" is the main single from the album, aside from the fact that it's the best original song on the whole thing - it's the most obviously country tune on the record. With the standard refrains to whiskey and hoedowns and solo cups, it's a playful ditty sure to be used in plenty of line dances. 

Meanwhile, other parts of the record are like a history lesson for generations of country music. And, luckily for us, Beyoncé is one of the cool teachers. Her homework feels like extra credit. Covering folks like The Beatles ("BLACKBIIRD" - surely this is one of the most covered songs...ever...right?) and Dolly Parton ("JOLENE" - over 400 recorded covers in countless languages), sampling and bending tunes from Fleetwood Mac, The Beach Boys, and Chuck Berry, and featuring duets with Miley Cyrus (she is Dolly's goddaughter, after all) and Post Malone (who has experimented with country music in his own right), it's a demonstration of her ability to stretch genres. And it's the thesis of the record.

But for the most part, it's what happens between the premiere tracks that's the most interesting. And her most personal, doing what she does best, giving insight into her life not as an artist, but as a mother, daughter, and wife. Her 6-year-old Rumi asks to "hear the lullaby" at the beginning of "PROTECTOR," which finds strength in the figurative with "An apricot picked right off a givin' tree / I gave water to thе soil / and now it feeds me." 

Bey's roots are Southern (she grew up in Texas and seems to have sung at her fair share of rodeos and fairs) and she's reminding us (or teaching those unfamiliar) that these motifs in her work didn't start with that one country song on Lemonade, but instead that it's long been a part of her storytelling. Later, she sings a refrain from Chuck Berry's "Oh Louisiana," the state of her mother's lineage, singing "Oh, Louisiana / I stayed away from you too long" as the zydeco influences from that same Creole heritage are found throughout the album. 

And yes, she's got some shit to say about Jay. 

It's the aforementioned cover of Dolly’s "Jolene" that brings it all together, combining Beyoncé's sounds and stylings with the songs of the curriculum. In 2022, Dolly told Trevor Noah, "I would just love to hear 'Jolene' done in just a big way, kind of like how Whitney did my 'I Will Always Love You', just someone that can take my little songs and make them like powerhouses. That would be a marvelous day in my life if she ever does do 'Jolene'."

And boy, did she get her wish. A big way doesn’t do it justice.

In the original "Jolene," Dolly begs that girl with the flaming locks of auburn hair to stay away from her man. Yes, I too have no idea why someone would cheat on Dolly, but I'm also completely at a loss as to why you would choose any random Becky over Beyoncé. "Hey, Miss Honey B, it’s Dolly P," says Dolly in her intro to the new version. "You know that hussy with the good hair you sang about? Reminded me of someone I knew back when..."

But while Dolly begs I wish you wouldn't, Bey says Bitch, I wish you would.

I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man

Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene

I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne (Don't try me)

It's this song, one of the more divisive of the record, that brings it all together. Beyoncé doesn't need to rehash the Becky thing. She doesn't need to record a country album in the first place. And she most definitely didn't need to make it a nearly 80-minute, 27-track epic - complete with an act break like the roadshow version of a certain Tarantino western. 

So then why did she?

Beyoncé knows that country music, real true country music, is the closest thing we have to the long tradition of oral storytelling in its honesty and its sincerity. And she knows that while she might have to flash her Southern credentials to get away with recording this album, the "South" can extend as far north as the rodeos in California's Central Valley (Clovis, to be exact - the hometown of "JUST FOR FUN" co-writer Ryan Beatty) and the streets of Baltimore City (Baltimore-bred Brittney Spencer appears on "BLACKBIIRD".) And she knows that the music she sings wouldn't exist without Linda Martell. 

For Beyoncé, it's all cyclical. That's why the final note of the record synchs up with the first track, effectively starting it all from the beginning. Going back to where we've been. Everything led us here, blues led to soul, folk led to country. How the greats lead us to Beyoncé, one of our generation's greats. This work is a testament both to that excellence and to all that came before it.