The rampant misogyny in country music continues to be present more and more with the constant acceptance of “bro-country” that artists such as Florida Georgia Line and Chris Young continue to popularize. The trend of women in their “cut off shorts” and “bikini tops” doing the singer’s every wish simply because they have to is a pretty constant trend, and when that particular distasteful one isn’t present, the woman is a cheater or just the scum of the earth. If you’re skeptical that this phenomenon exists, I’m going to examine a prime example of “bro-country” in Tyler Farr’s Redneck Crazy.
For a little background on 
this Farr character, he is described in his biography as “a thinker, an observer of the human condition, a man in the middle of a surging testosterone country movement in today’s Nashville who insists on digging a little deeper, getting a little realer and owning how hard it can be”¹. Now, I’m personally not here to judge Farr on his website or the way he wants to be portrayed on said website, but I have to say that just reading this one sentence, (which is the first one of his biography), I am not expecting much humility from him in his music. Continuing your way through his narcissism fueled biography, it’s revealed that Farr has an affinity for what he would personally consider hard country and honky-tonk, which a quick Google search tells me is country music that’s played in a band with steel and electric guitars². Now let’s get to the fun part and analyze the intricacies of this authentic country boy’s Redneck Crazy.
Let’s get to the first verse where Farr already tells us how he’s going to “drive like hell through [his ex-girlfriend’s] neighborhood”, park his truck on her front lawn and get drunk. We don’t have any of the tropes that I pointed out in the first paragraph yet, but we do see Farr as somewhat of a crazy individual who probably thinks this kind of behavior is completely normal.
Now the chorus: “I’m going to aim my headlights into your bedroom windows, throw empty beer cans at both of your shadows, I didn’t come here to start a fight, but I’m up for anything tonight. You know you broke the wrong heart baby and drove me redneck crazy”³. So, let’s unpack this chorus piece by piece; Farr is upset that his ex-girlfriend is with another man so he sees it as his right to make her life miserable because she obviously deserves it because as we will see later in the song, she is nothing but the scum of the earth and he is “almighty”, essentially. This gives him the right to throw beer cans at her house and get in a fight with her and her new boyfriend. It is at this point now that I would also like to point out that this entire song is sung in this kind of relaxed, twangy style, which is a stark contrast to the lyrics that portray Farr as an extremely jealous ex-boyfriend, which I find interesting. It’s almost as though he is trying to manipulate his listeners into believing that he is a saint that would never hurt a fly because “Listen to the way he sings! He’s so calm even though his heart’s been broken!”. The difference between the sound of his music and the tone of his lyrics is almost black and white so it can only be in some sort of effort to make him out to be the pure-hearted “good guy” that deserves nothing but love and support.
Farr in his music video for “Redneck Crazy”
Let’s continue onto the next verse! Farr tells the listener that the reason he is justified in acting so “redneck crazy” is that his ex-girlfriend was “getting some on the side”3 for an undisclosed amount of time. Obviously, we only get to hear his side of the story, so we must take his word as truth, his ex was a lying cheater and we should all hate her because this “bro” said so in his twangy guitar voice. We then have the chorus again, and then we have the final verse, where Farr brags about how he isn’t the type of guy to leave women alone. Is that how you want to portray yourself? This song played on the radio and it was a popular song, so obviously people were supportive of the message that Farr was trying to get across, and that’s the issue that’s being presented here.
Farr is one of the many “bro-country” musicians that manipulates people’s opinions about women into these monsters that shattered their hearts into millions of pieces, hiding their faults behind crooning voices and twangy guitar solos. When you really listen to the lyrics it’s terrifying to think about your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend doing this to you. This song/album was released in 2013 and Farr hasn’t received any repercussions for his creepy misogynistic lyrics save a few angry articles online, and unless country radio starts to double down and actually listen to lyrics of the songs they stream, more and more people will begin to believe that this kind of behavior is acceptable.
2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/honky-tonk
3 https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tylerfarr/redneckcrazy.html
Image 1 Site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_Crazy_%28song%29#/media/File:RedneckCrazy.jpg
Image 2 Site: https://tasteofcountry.com/files/2012/08/Tyler-Farr.jpg?w=600&h=0&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89