Resident #4: Michael Martin Murphey

     In the 1970s, it was okay for a cowboy to have long hair and a thick, luxurious beard; riding the range was most definitely a counter-cultural activity, and if a wide-brimmed hat and a buckskin jacket weren’t exactly haute couture, they were a lot more common than they are now. Cowboys nowadays wear feed-store hats and Carhartt jackets and shave on a regular basis, and while I’m sure they’re more comfortable, they assuredly aren’t half as flamboyantly iconic. Country music could use some leather fringe.

     Anyway, thanks to market segmentation and the new requirement that we define ourselves by what we don’t listen to as much as by what we do listen to (what, you weren’t around to protest that legislation?), country music and pop music currently have a somewhat antagonistic relationship; country music sets itself up as having the pulse of middle America, whereas pop music is all about the party (and/or sippin’ Bacardi), and never the twain shall meet.

     However, as I said before, the 1970s were a different time; a time where a guy who grew up in the heart of cow country could go play on the Midnight Special; a time where a song about a girl who loved a horse a little too deeply could go all the way to #1; a time where a cowboy could sneak a few bars of a Scriabin prelude into a song that was meant to be played around a campfire. Country music was pop music and vice versa, and guys with a bit of twang in their delivery were respected on both sides of the aisle, as it were.

     Of course, Michael Martin Murphey isn’t even really a country star; he’s a straight-up cowboy. Listen to his biggest hit, Wildfire. Here’s a man who knows horses, who’s spent time on a ranch, who may have slept out under the stars a time or two. Is there such a thing as cowpoke street cred? Because Michael Martin Murphey has it in spades. Does he wear at least one article of clothing made out of leather at all times? Without a doubt. Does he wear shitkickers with the toes so pointed he could crush a cockroach in a corner? I shouldn’t even insult him by asking. And yet he’s undeniably a radio star.
     That sense of inclusion is one of the big reasons we here at the Home love the 70s. It wasn't about looking good (hell, I think the opposite may be the case) or developing a brand or even entertaining other people. Folks made music because, well, because they liked music. There's a lot of freedom in doing something just because you want to, a freedom that sadly just isn't present much anymore. We're all scenesters with our PBR and black-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans and hair-metal concert t-shirts and American Spirits and dive bars and bike locks in back pockets and ironic sense of detachment, and that just isn't healthy. So God bless you, people who made it through the 1970s in one piece. If you want to walk around braless, you do it. If you want to go to music festivals with your old lady and make a public nuisance of yourself by doing that swaying, arms straight up in the air waving your head around shuffling hippy dance you do, feel free. If you want to smoke a joint at the next picnic table down while the family reunion goes on without you, light it up, my friend. You've earned that peace of mind.