Recently my wife pointed out that I’m something of a hypocrite.
“Why do you play a cowboy game when you hate country music?”
It was a quiet Saturday morning. We were sitting on the couch, together but lost to our own interests. She looked up at the screen from time to time, usually whenever there was a lot of neighing. A horse will bring my girl to the yard, or at least the TV.
Her question snapped me out of half-dreams in which I’m a rugged outlaw who stops for little old ladies but shoots people dead for raising their voice. I reined up—literally—and looked at her. “What?” I asked, even though I’d heard her clearly. Sometimes the only valid response is to question the question itself.
It didn’t go down any easier the second time.
“Those are not the same things!” Beyond the bare facts—Red Dead Redemption, and its sequel, are self-evidently awesome, and country music is clearly not—the Western has nothing to do with country music. Other than maybe country music wishing it was a Western.1
This was one of those mild disagreements doomed to go unresolved, one that could easily spiral into something bigger if we decided to be stupid about it. Fortunately, we’ve been married long enough to know some things are Just Not Worth It. Most things, in fact. We both made our stances clear and returned to our separate business.
The question lingered, invading my thoughts like one of those nasty ear worms in The Wrath of Khan. The idea that I’d gotten well into my 40s harboring different opinions on two things that were maybe actually the same kinda bothered me. And if that was true, what else was I wildly inconsistent about? Is Han Solo not the best part of Star Wars? Is playing pretend elf games actually not very cool? Is Steve Rogers’s most important relationship Peggy Carter, not Bucky Barnes?
As I sit here, writing this several weeks later, I still don’t have a definitive answer. What does it mean to love Westerns but hate country? Nothing. As Walt Whitman wrote, “Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
Even though it’s taken an outsized portion of this long intro, the validity of country music is not on the docket. What this piece is actually about is why Westerns have such a hold over me. Why do I love them so much?
My wife wasn’t totally wrong about the country music thing. Westerns evoke a bygone era of long horizons and complete self-sufficiency, unto the point of dispensing death. Those are the things that attract me. Well that, and obviously the whole outlaw thing.2 But apart from those huge exceptions, Westerns do share some DNA with country music. I didn’t recognize it until I started thinking about why I’m a city boy who also loves Westerns, which minimally involve horses, a very country kind of thing.
I grew up watching Westerns on Sunday afternoons with my great-grandfather. I don’t remember any of the details, only that it happened regularly. I must not have hated it. Then again, I’ve never been one to look away from a television emitting light and sound.3 Something must’ve taken root. It laid dormant until Emilio Estevez and Jon Bon Jovi kicked down my door. I’ve been off-and-on obsessed since. Does my very strong feelings about Han Solo stem from the fact that he’s a space cowboy? I have no way of answering that, but I also think the answer is yes.
There’s a high likelihood that I saw the Lonesome Dove miniseries during those years of lost remembrance. As I understand such things, it was a pretty big deal at the time. I never sought it out once I developed the ability to retain memories and the independence to work the remote, for one reason: the name “Lonesome Dove” always sounded soap opera-ish. It sounds melodramatic! Or at least a bit cheesy.
That was a hill I was content to die on until about 7 years ago, when Red Dead Redemption 2 released. I loved the original—it’s probably my favorite game ever—and something about the sequel’s depiction of a world slowly passing away spoke to me at an elemental level. As any gamer can attest, one of the best parts of gaming is those first few hours with a new game, when all possibilities are on the table and discovery is around every corner. I love when a game sinks its hooks into me and won’t let go. Some of my favorite memories of Skyrim aren’t even of playing it, but of reading about other people’s experiences on Reddit while I was trapped at work.4
The same scenario played out when my desire to play RDR2 far outstripped my ability to do so. I ended up reading posts about how the tone of the game closely mirrored that of Lonesome Dove. Sold. The book is even better than the game, by the way, which is a high bar indeed. It’s one of the best I’ve ever read. I still think the title sucks though.
My media consumption tends to be cyclical. I’ll get super interested in something, to the exclusion of all else, and then put it aside after 3-4 weeks in favor of some new hotness. Chances are, the new hotness isn’t actually all that new. I’m still returning to Skyrim 14 years(!) later. I don’t know if it’s a me-thing or something to do with aging, but I’d rather bounce around between a dozen of my favorite things than invest heavily in something new.5 Few things are more disappointing than putting time into something that sucks.
So I’ve recently found myself back in the saddle. Again.
The Red Dead games are similar in structure to Grand Theft Auto—both were created by Rockstar Games—but the western is a more introspective and hypnotic experience. The thrill of playing GTA is one of seeing the real world brought to vivid life, in all its loud color, and randomly deciding to throw grenades into a crowded street, just to see what happens. Red Dead is quieter and (generally) less purposefully destructive. You belong to a found family of outlaws, but most times you ride across rolling green expanses by yourself. The world isn’t empty. It just feels bigger. Like you could pick a direction and ride for days, and never find an end to the road.
Firmly in the middle of middle age, when every day looks like the last, the game’s sense of possibility beckons to me. Tomorrow will bring meetings and emails and calls that are materially no different than any other I’ve ever encountered. If doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for different results is a form of insanity, what’s it called when you do the same things and understand that nothing will change? It’s not hopelessness. It’s not capitulation. It’s acceptance. This is what modern white collar work looks like. A lot of time at a desk, staring at a screen.
There’s no way for that not to sound depressing. And I actually like my job. But the sameness of it is wearing. It sends me in search of novelty. That feeling has driven other men to buy convertibles or go on coke-fueled binges in search of their lost youth or, perhaps, some kind of thin hope. I’d rather play video games.
What first drew me to Westerns was the image of a stoic gunslinger dispensing justice as he saw fit. That independence—not only could he go anywhere, he defined the rules themselves. As a kid subjected to the tyranny of bedtime, there was strong appeal. And while that is cool—Han Solo remains my favorite because he plays according to his own rules—these days I seek out Westerns not so much for the gunslingers, but for the worlds they inhabit. I don’t have any desire to live during a time in which dysentery was deadly. But it’s great fun to visit, digitally, as a break from the norm.
Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t a roleplaying game. You can’t direct the narrative. The train is moving in one direction, and you are strapped in for the ride. Your choices are limited to deciding when to invoke missions, how to dress your cowboy, and which random passerby to shoot. You experience the story in the same way that you enjoy a movie.
It’s a great story. But it’s the in-between moments, when you’re meandering between plot icons on the map, when the game feels most alive. There’s no agenda, and often not even a path. Just you, your horse, and the siren call of the horizon.
Let’s ride.
I apologize if you love country music. I can’t stop myself from dunking on it.
It’s super weird—I am generally a rule follower but I love the mythology of Wild West outlaws. In my early teens, I went through a whole phase. It mostly consisted of checking out books on Billy the Kid and Jesse James, and watching Young Guns on repeat.
This is probably going to make me sound awful, but I believe in a shameful degree of honesty when I’m shielded by a keyboard. Once my wife and I went to a local Mexican restaurant for our anniversary. There was a TV mounted in the corner, broadcasting a soccer game, in Spanish. I couldn’t look away, even though I don’t speak Spanish and don’t particularly care about soccer. Happy anniversary, hon!
My current gaming crush: Helldivers 2, a shooter heavily inspired by Starship Troopers. Come for the satire, stay for the bug squashing.
My regulars:
Movies: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Moneyball, superheroes
TV: Firefly, Deadwood, Andor
Books: The Road, ASOIAF, The Name of the Wind
Games: D&D, Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim
I love westerns - all of em - but we listen to the Beastie Boys around the campfire. I do love some hardcore folk music but you won’t find it on the radio 😀 maybe the knowledge that 99% of them will end with the good guys on top is a lot of the draw.
As someone who didn't like country music growing up and really only listened to it after moving to Texas because it was pretty much the only option for live music where I first lived; I will say there is probably country music out there you'd like. It just won't come from the Nashville machine.