Brian Mansfield
Flat Broke Songs: No. 7
'Last Dollar (Fly Away)' -- Tim McGraw (2006)
The bottom lines: "I'm down to my last dollar/I've walked right through my shoes/Just a small reminder of the hell that I've gone through."
Kris Kristofferson once wrote, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 6
'Too Much Month at the End of the Money' -- Marty Stuart (2003)
The bottom lines: "I'd love to take you out like I said I would, honey/But there's too much month at the end of the money."
Stuart plays this throwback honky-tonk shuffle, originally recorded by Billy Hill in 1989, for all it's worth -- which isn't as much as it used to be...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 5
'Busted' -- Johnny Cash (1963)
The bottom lines: "The fields are all bare and the cotton won't grow/Me and my family gotta pack up and go/Where I'll make a living, the Lord only knows/But I'm busted."
The message behind Cash's hit has renewed relevance today -- whether it's cotton or stocks, everybody suffers when the bottom falls out of the market...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 4
'King of the Road' -- Roger Miller (1965)
The bottom lines: "Two hours of pushing broom buys an eight-by-twelve, four-bit room/I'm a man of means by no means ... king of the road."
Miller's rambler hops boxcars and pays for his nightly board with a couple hours of sweeping floors -- homeless, maybe, but by choice, and with an air of romanticism...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 3
'Coal Miner's Daughter' -- Loretta Lynn (1970)
The bottom lines: "We were poor but we had love/That's the one thing my daddy made sure of/He shoveled coal to make a poor man's holler."
As she says in the opening line, Lynn was born a coal miner's daughter -- one of eight kids raised in a cabin with no electricity and no running water...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 2
'If We Make It Through December' -- Merle Haggard (1973)
The bottom lines: "I don't mean to hate December/It's meant to be the happy time of year/And my little girl don't understand/Why Daddy can't afford no Christmas here."
After he gets laid off, Haggard's protagonist worries less for himself than for his daughter...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 1
'Coat of Many Colors' -- Dolly Parton (1971)
The bottom lines: "Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be/In my coat of many colors my mama made for me."
When a girl proudly displays her new, multi-colored coat, lovingly sewn by her mother from donated rags, her classmates mock her poverty -- though, until that moment, she'd never considered herself poor...
Flat Broke Songs: No. 10
The greatest country singers have known hard times, and they know how to sing about them. These days, with the economy in turmoil, some of country's classic songs suddenly sound like they could've been written yesterday – or, more troublingly, tomorrow. Thes...
Countriest Country Lyrics: No. 10
"It represents the mud flaps/Six pack, bare crack/Over-taxed, flag-wavin', fun-lovin' crowd"
'American Honky Tonk Bar Association,' Garth Brooks (1993)
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Countriest Country Lyrics: No. 9
"See Mary Jo rockin' that front porch swing/Bikini top and them cut-off jeans/And that's where Hillbilly Heaven begins/Ah, she'll pour 'ya some of that cherry wine/Boy, you're guaranteed to have yourself one hell of a time"
--'Holler Back,' Lost Trailers (2008)
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