Run, Rose, Run

The three main characters compose country songs reflecting their states of mind. Their lyrics balance personal experiences with universal emotions and country music’s precise motifs, as they strive for both self-expression and connection to an audience. This contradiction originated in the roots of country music—the Scottish, Irish, and English ballads of 19th-century settlers in the Appalachian mountains. Country music emerged in the next century when radio broadcasts featured singers who put distinctive yet catchy twists on the old ballads or shared new songs that retained the flavor of the Appalachian originals. While country music’s appeal spread beyond Tennessee, the genre remains most favored by white people from Southern and Midwestern states, where socioeconomic progress tends to be slow. The music’s ragged melodies and use of instruments like the fiddle, guitar, banjo, and harmonica—which reflect its beginnings—complement lyrics that abound with motifs of the rural South, often featuring denim, cowboy boots, and guns.

The sense of country music as an inheritance is prevalent too: All three main characters are white Southerners who grew up worshipping country music stars. AnnieLee’s memories—like listening to country music with her mother or pinning up Ruthanna’s picture with the saints and praying to her—are one aspect of the past that she owns. To bolster her ambitions (as most of her past was deeply discouraging), AnnieLee holds fast to memories of her mother, who marveled that AnnieLee found “music in everything […] right up until the day she died” (8). Thus, country music becomes a kind of surrogate mother, nurturing AnnieLee toward the best version of herself—and Ruthanna takes up that role, mentoring her on the most genuine path when the male voice of commerce would lead her astray.

In addition, country music engenders a sense of pride in being from the South and having endured hardship. For example, the rhyme “faded jeans” and “big dreams” in Ruthanna’s hit song implies that those worn down to a thread can still experience hope and achieve their goals—a message that echoes the rhetoric of the American Dream: Through hard work, one can achieve anything. Similarly, Southern diction—like “cain’t” and “lyin’” from AnnieLee’s “Woman Up (and Take It Like a Man)” (417)—connotes pride in Southern dialect, which mainstream and elite culture often looks down on. Thus, AnnieLee’s songs speak for both her and people like her, who have endured oppression. Southern pride is also evident in the classic American tastes of the main characters—for example, all prefer French fries and chili dogs to the more exotic intrusions of low-carb diets, and both Ethan and AnnieLee favor American jeans and cowboy boots to fancy foreign labels, reflecting the particular, slightly insular world of country music.

The songs reflect the characters’ personal journeys. AnnieLee’s image of a phoenix rising from the ashes in the lyric “Dark night, bright future” refers to emerging from oppression; it touches a Caster County waitress, who remembers Rose McCord and relates to her backstory. When the waitress sings AnnieLee’s lyrics, Ethan observes a transformation as she shows off her “high and clear” voice (368). Although AnnieLee is on the run for much of the novel, her songs are full of fight. “Woman Up (and Take It Like a Man)” asserts that she’ll be “fightin’ ‘til I’m six feet/ underground” (417). Such lyrics refer to her dream of becoming a country star on her own terms but also foreshadow her fight against oppression by men. Her “fierce and furious” (67) delivery reinforces the lyrics, and the nonverbal cues of performance enhance the message, which simultaneously encourages her and her listener. For Ethan, songwriting reflects his personal journey in that he’s blocked from creating compelling lyrics until “Demons,” when he relinquishes his fixation on his deceased, unfaithful wife and embraces his passion for AnnieLee. “We’ve all had our demons/ I guess I was dreamin’/ To think we could fight them as one” (436) indicates his readiness to put the past behind him and risk being with someone again rather than prioritizing security and anonymity. While the lyrics refer to a phase in Ethan’s life, they connote a sense that they might apply to other singers too, as the characters and their stories become part of country music tradition.