Last week on American Idol, producer Jimmy Iovine selected one of the songs for each of the contestants, as did the judges. One of the oddest choices was the selection of the Kenny Rogers song “She Believes In Me” for Scotty McCreery. The song style was not odd, as it is a pop-country classic and that style fits McCreery like a glove. What did not work was the subject of the song and McCreery’s youth.
In “She Believes In Me,” the singer laments how he has let down his wife or girlfriend and how he has failed to keep the promises he made when he was younger. The singer recalls, “I told her someday if she was my girl, I could change the world / With my little songs, I was wrong.” It seemed odd to hear the seventeen-year-old McCreery singing the lyrics. Did he promise his girl he would be a national success before he turned sixteen?
Still, the American Idol country song choices were pretty safe for the top two Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina. The two largely have glided through by only singing country songs without being challenged to branch out for some variety. In past seasons, contestants were often forced to sing in other styes, which sometimes worked and sometimes did not. But this season, the judges and America seem content to allow the young contestants to remain in one genre.
I would have liked to have seen Jimmy Iovene pick a more surprising Kenny Rogers song like “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Although I grew up hearing the pop-country Kenny Rogers songs like “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” “Don’t Fall in Love With a Dreamer” and “Islands in the Stream” overplayed on the radio, I often forget that early in his career he recorded “Just Dropped In” with The First Edition when he was more of a hippy than a silver-bearded pop singer.
You may recall the Kenny Rogers song from a dream sequence in the movie The Big Lebowski in 1998, but it first was a hit in 1967. “Just Dropped In” was written by one of Kenny Rogers’s former high school friends — Mickey Newbury, who also composed “An American Trilogy,” discussed in a previous post. “Just Dropped In” sounds unlike “Coward of the County” and the other pop songs Rogers recorded later in his career. Even his voice sounds different. And the lyrics deviate from the literalness of most of his hits:
I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in;
I watched myself crawlin’ out as I was a-crawlin’ in;
I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind;
I saw so much I broke my mind;
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
According to Wikipedia, the song was a warning about using LSD. But a Dec. 23, 2000 Billboard article “The Story So Far” quotes Rogers explaining that Newbury did not intend the song to be taken completely seriously. “Mickey wrote a quasi-psychedelic song with elements of humor,” he explained. “It’s a tradition in country music to have your tongue in cheek, and that’s the case here.” (“The Story So Far,” at K-2)
Maybe it would sound odd to have the 17-year-old Scotty McCreery singing the lyrics on American Idol, but it still would be a better song choice than “She Believes In Me.” And with Kenny Rogers on vocals and Glen Campbell playing the guitar on the original recording, you cannot say that country stars cannot handle “Just Dropped In.”
Check out this psycedelic video from The Smother Brothers Hour. I would like to see this type of production on American Idol too. Groovy.
(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)
