Television
Feminism and fiddles
Wendy Cope
Ithink the first Country and Western song I ever learned must have been 'A Four-Legged Friend'. If I remember right- ly, it was sung by Roy Rogers and it goes like this: 'A four-legged friend, a four- legged friend, /He'll never let you down. /He's honest and faithful right up to the end, /A wonderful one two three four- legged friend.' It was taught to me by my sister, who enjoyed cowboy films, and we used to sing it very loudly. It was especially satisfying when you were fed up with all your two-legged friends and relations.
I recalled this childhood favourite as a result of watching An A-Z of C & W on Channel 4. As it happens, I know very little about this kind of music and I am confused about definitions. Are there three different categories — Country, Western and Country-and-Western? And how does one tell the difference? I suppose it. is safe to assume that anything with a cowboy in it must be Western but that is as far as I can go towards clarifying the matter. After watching one and a half television programmes on the subject I am not much wiser but I am beginning to feel quite enthusiastic.
An A-Z is presented by a wonderfully eccentric English doctor called Sam Hutt, known to the C & W world as Hank Wangford. Hank has a pony-tail and a lot of stubble on his face and he dresses in cowboy gear. He speaks with an English accent when he is interviewing Americans and with an American accent when he appears on stage with his group. I don't know how he presents himself to his patients but I am sure he cheers them up.
The alphabetical format of his pro- grammes — with sections on, for example, Fans, Feminism and Fiddles — seems bitty and confusing at times but at least there is no opportunity to get bored. Long inter- views with Bobby Bare and Loretta Lynn, which might well try my patience if they were shown whole, have been cut into tolerable pieces and interspersed through the series. For personal reasons, I was interested to see Loretta Lynn dealing with the inevitable silly question about femin- ism. 'You seem,' ventured the interviewer, `to sing from the point of view of sister- hood, rather than Feminism with a capital F.' I groaned in sympathy but Loretta seemed not to mind. 'That's what I tell them,' she replied. 'They would come to me as if I was a women's libber and I'd say, "Hold it. You don't see me out there burnin' my bra." You know? I'm wearing my bra. And I'm for women but I'm not against men. That's for sure.'
Last year an interviewer asked me if I would describe myself as a feminist but not the kind of feminist who was aggressive about men. No I wouldn't, I said. In my view, being aggressive about men was just fine — what I couldn't stand was the lentil-eating, goddess-worshipping kind of feminism. I thought this was rather a brave thing to say to the Guardian but, after I had been boasting about it for a week, the goddess got her own back. My little joke was garbled and the piece appeared under a headline saying, 'She is a non-lentil worshipping feminist.' I have been looking for a chance to set the record straight and I hope readers will forgive the digression. To return to Loretta Lynn, I can't help think- ing that the author of a song called 'Your Squaw is on the Warpath Tonight' must be the teeniest bit against men now and then.
I quite liked that song. However, the best one I've heard in the series so far was the Patsy Cline number 'Never No More'. Until the Sunday before last I had never heard of Patsy Cline. Now I am eager to hear more of her. Apparently there is a film of her life-story. Perhaps one of the television companies will be able to arrange to show it as a follow-up. Mean- while I'm going to buy the new guitar I've been promising myself and extend my repertoire.
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