Cowboy Crush – “Miss Difficult”

One of my principal complaints about the current state of the Country genre is that the music has no personality. Afraid of being labeled “fringe,” or “progressive,” artists patently avoid taking musical risks. And for good reason–position yourself too far “outside the box” and you will almost certainly alienate what is a disappointingly conservative audience.

And that, above all other reasons, is why the format has become an imagination-less void where similar sounding artists sing about the same boring subjects over, and over, and over again.

So I applaud the ladies of the all-girl quartet Cowboy Crush for having the balls to release “Miss Difficult,” a bizarre, over the top, but surprisingly memorable romp about a young woman who might otherwise be described as a major league bee-otch. And let me be completely honest here–it takes a huge set, because this song has a snowman’s chance in Hell of catching on at radio.

“Miss Difficult” has some very sharp lyrics: “She was born with her fists all clenched up for fightin’/She looked out the window and laughed at the lightnin’,” might be the best opening lines I’ve heard so far this year. But it also has a couple of plot holes–references to “this town” and “Difficult, Tennessee” unnecessarily shift the song’s focus away from the subject. And I strongly doubt that an eleven year-old girl is going to hot-wire a truck.

But I can forgive these shortcomings. I can forgive them because at least this song dares (unlike so much of the drivel we hear on a daily basis) to be different. Good luck finding a cliché or recycled line here. Gimmicky? A bit. Brilliant songwriting? Not quite. It’s a sometimes silly piece of ridiculously up-beat, Red Bull-fueled confection. But…

…I love the song’s panache.

I want a reason to get excited. I crave songs that make me want to sing along at the top of my lungs, to stop and take notice and say, “Yeah! Now that’s a song!”

Now that’s a song.

Listen: Cowboy Crush – “Miss Difficult”