Country music encourages faster drinking

One wonders just how the research was conducted in the following study; as reported by Associated Press and published in the Edmonton Sun, December 26, 1988:

Phoenix, Arizona--"Wailing, lonesome, self-pitying music" in country western bars makes drinkers there consume alcohol faster, James Schaefer of the University of Minnesota told a recent gathering in Arizona.

The findings came from a 10-year study by Schaefer and a team of other anthropologists of a bar in Missoula, Montana, a lumber and paper-milling town. The survey was supplemented by study of about 2,000 groups in 65 similar saloons in the Minneapolis area over three years.

Schaefer even wrote a country western song on the subject, beginning, "Joe, don't play that country music.
"I drink more, and think sore, and sing right along..."

"No doubt about it," he said, "country and western can be a prescription for trouble among people with little self-control." One reason, he said, is the lyrics' sad songs of lost love, personal freedom, truck driving and the solace of drinking.

The songs and lyrics of Hank Williams, Jimmy Rodgers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were particularly powerful drinking inducements, Schaefer found.

Their songs celebrate heavy drinking by making heroes out of drunkards. In contrast, he said, rock 'n' roll singers don't glorify anything or anyone."

But in the country western bars, slower music went with faster drinking. "Hard drinkers prefer listening to slower-paced, wailing, lonesome, self-pitying music during slow times in the bar," said Shaefer. "They seemed to prefer bold, macho, strong-beat-based music when the action in the bar picks up."

And they use the music as a "mood selection device"--picking out three or four songs on a jukebox, he said. "The music maintains the normative flow of emotions and the rhythm of activity--like the sound track in a movie."

"As the mood and tempo of the songs filtered through the bar, key actors could be seen changing the level and intensity of their drinking activity."