Saturday Redneck - Miranda Lambert

In honor of the Northeast Gunblogger's shoot, we need a country song that has firearms. Fortunately, that's not hard to find ....

On a more serious note, one thing that attracts me to country music is you often find song that has a real "Don't mess with me" attitude. When you combine that attitude with an important social issue, you sometimes get something astonishing.

Miranda Lambert was runner-up on the first season of Nashville Star, a country music version of Americn Idol. In her song Gunpowder and Lead she takes on the issue of wife abuse, with a rockin' beat:

County road 233, under my feet
Nothin' on this white rock but little ole me
I've got two miles till, he makes bail
And if I'm right we're headed straight for hell

[Chorus:]

I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun
Wait by the door and light a cigarette
If he wants a fight well now he's got one
And he ain't seen me crazy yet
He slap my face and he shook me like a rag doll
Don't that sound like a real man
I'm going to show him what a little girls made of
Gunpowder and lead

It's half past ten, another six pack in
And I can feel the rumble like a cold black wind
He pulls in the drive, the gravel flies
He dont know what's waiting here this time

I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun
Wait by the door and light a cigarette
If he wants a fight well now he's got one
And he ain't seen me crazy yet
He slap my face and he shook me like a rag doll
Don't that sound like a real man
I'm going to show him what a little girls made of
Gunpowder and lead

His fist is big but my gun's bigger
He'll find out when I pull the trigger

I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun
Wait by the door and light a cigarette
If he wants a fight well now he's got one
And he ain't seen me crazy yet
He slap my face and he shook me like a rag doll
Don't that sound like a real man
I'm going to show him what a little girls made of
Gunpowder and lead

I'm going to show him what a little girl's made of. Boy, howdy.

Zendo Deb writes often and well about women who have to deal with an abusive man. Self defense is a human right. Oleg Volk has a series of amazing photographs on this as well.

Song, written word, picture, all saying the same thing: molon labe. His fist is big but my gun's bigger.

And for those of you not from the South, yes, "bail" and "hell" do in fact rhyme. Why did you ask?