Stereotypes in Country Songs

If you ever take the time to listen and think about the lyrics to country music, you'll realize that all the songs are actually different. Listening to the song "Chicken Fried" by: Zac Brown Band I realized that they are singing about growing up in the south, but are very stereotypical about it. One lyric is "... sweet tea, pecan pie, and homemade wine - where the peaches grow ..." stereotypes what come from the south, Georgia more specifically. Yes, Georgia is known as the peach state but saying "iced tea" it groups together all the southern people and it becomes known as a Southern Thing. Another line was "... so we don't have to sacrifice all the things we love, like our chicken fried ..." this implies that everyone from the south loves and eating fried chicken. There are many people who do but not only in the south. Also not everyone from the south drinks iced tea or eats fried chicken. This song probably wasn't written to group together all people in the South and stereotype them but when you really listen it's easier to realize that is what it's doing. More often times than not we just sing along to the lyrics without listening and really thinking into them. There are many other songs, both country and any other genre in music that stereotype race and religion in their songs and no one stops to think about it and realize that is actually what the song is saying. We don't always realize it but stereotypes are in everything and anything, we just have to listen for them.