Kitty Wells, sometimes called the “Queen of Country Music,” died this week at the age of 92. Growing up in rural America, Kitty Wells was often heard in the background at the sale barn or when my dad went to the blacksmith shop in Keosauqua. But farmers didn’t spend a lot of time analyzing lyrics and I didn’t usually give the words much thought.
But Russell Moore in his thoughtful series, “The Cross and the Juke Box” explains how Kitty Wells’ song, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,” was a response to another country music song.
Earlier this week I wrote a blog post about the legacy of the late Kitty Wells. Wells is most famous for her song “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels.” The song made history because it was a response, from a woman’s perspective, to Hank Thompson’s hit “Wild Side of Life.” In his song, Thompson cynically berates his ex-wife who left him. He should have known, he sings, that she’d “never made a wife.” She was instead a “honky-tonk angel,” predestined to be unfaithful to him.
Wells argued, in a deceptively sweet and gentle voice, that women were driven to the honky-tonk nightlife not by God’s design but by years of life with men who “think that they’re still single.”
Miss Kitty’s protest is not against womanhood, being a wife, a lover or a mother. Instead, she is crying out for those things to be true. She is calling men to live in a way that is worthy of their God-given role in the family structure. In this episode we will consider what a crucified, self-sacrificial, Christ-shaped headship looks like in contrast to the predatory, juvenile “headship” that so pervades much of American culture.
Listen to Dr. Moore here
