As I was thinking about my next blog post, the song “God’s Country” by Blake Shelton came on the radio. I knew I had to take advantage of the opportunity. For starters, I personally love country music, especially Blake Shelton. If you’re unfamilar with the song, the opening verse is “Right outside of this one church town, there’s a gold dirt road to a whole lot of nothing. Got a deed to the land but it ain’t my ground this is God’s country.”In my opinion, this opening verse is powerful, for it sets the tone for the rest of the song. The primary focus is to state that no matter how little one has, that we essentially have “it all” due to America belonging to God- that He’s got us covered.

As the song continues to build, Blake goes into the final bridge with “I don’t care what my headstone reads or what kind of pine wood box I end up in, when it’s my time landing six feet deep in God’s country.” When I first heard this lyric I honestly just sang it and didn’t really think deeply about the meaning until now. In my opinion it means that society tends to fixate on chasing wealth, materialistic belongings, or even striving for what “success” looks like to them. Although some of those things are important to a degree, this verse makes it clear that when we die we loose all of our earthly possessions. It doesn’t mean anything and isn’t worth anything anymore. Yet Blake uses “God’s Country” to tie it with “One nation under God” regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and American values.

Another repeated line through the song is “the devil went down to Georgia but he didn’t stick around, this is God’s Country.” I can’t tell if Blake is using the devil as the actual man himself in a religious matter or if he is using the devil as a term for the misfortune that lies in America. Regardless, he makes his point that God follows through with his promises. An example of this is “We pray for rain, and thank Him when it’s fallen. Cause it brings grain and a little bit of money.” In conclusion, this song is powerful and also acknowledges that the American Dream is a myth, but that if we turn to God that we can become better united as a nation as one.