CMT picks the 100 Greatest Country Songs

I didn't realize that "Stand By Your Man" was so highly thought of. I don't particularly care for it (killer chorus of course, but the verse is very weak and boring). I would (in my total ignorance of country music) have chosen something by Patsy Cline surely. She is possibily my favorite female singer ever, so it's a no brainer for me. It's interesting that the top ten are all incredibly poetic for pop songs, many of them dealing with pain and loss in a very mature, un-pop culture like way. The exception, of course, being the Garth Brooks tune "I've Got Friends in Low Places," a stupid but very fun song. And come to think of it, Brooks doesn't really shy away from loss either.

And all of this makes me wonder: is country music the painful antidote to the happy love songs of mainstream pop music? What dark perpectives and truths are buried in this music so often derided as being for "poor white trash?" Maybe it simply reflects the wounded pride and harsh realities of the post-war american south. And if that is so, is the current pop-oriented sound coming out of Nashville evidence of the fact that the South has finally recovered? Or (a darker possibility) is it being ignored in favor of the coporatized sound now popular in Nashville, sold to white middle class suburbanites?