When country music taught me how to live, by Folorunso Adisa
Music is my opium. Not the raucous noise that drowns thought, but the kind that stirs the soul and speaks in the secret language only the spirit understands. If night had a soundtrack, mine would be laced with country ballads, music of the land, of longing, of lessons wrapped in lullabies. That genre, so often misunderstood and dismissed by those whose ears have never known ache, became my balm of Gilead when I first stepped foot in the United Kingdom.
I was a boy from home, still smouldering with the scent of red soil and roasted corn, missing Nigeria in ways too private to name. And in those tender midnight hours, as I typed beneath the sterile glow of my laptop screen, the voices of Kenny Rogers, John Denver, and Merle Haggard did not merely play, they remembered for me. They didn’t just sing, they summoned.
One particular night, 2:30am, the clock smug in its stillness, my speakers gave way to Kenny Rogers, the prophet of restraint, teaching me life in four bars. “The Gambler” came first, that dusty oracle of life-as-poker: “Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…” And as those lyrics washed over me, I wasn’t just completing coursework, I was composing my entry into manhood.
And just when I thought I’d absorbed enough wisdom, he delivered the real sermon. “Coward of the County.” Oh, what a gospel of conflict and character. The father’s voice, firm but tender, urges: “Walk away from trouble if you can…” A line soaked in restraint, not cowardice. But when the son, blood boiling with the righteousness of justice, replies, “Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man,” I felt as if the chorus had crawled inside my chest.
He was speaking to me, the immigrant boy learning how to fight without fists, to endure without cracking. That night, Kenny Rogers wasn’t singing; he was discipling. Each lyric a proverb. Each note a scripture. With every bar, I found strength not just to finish the night’s work, but to carry the weight of a new world. To prove, not to the world, but to myself, that I was man enough for this avalanche of solitude, struggle, and silent victories.
Yes, The Gambler, released in 1978, is more than a song. It is philosophy in denim. Written by Don Schlitz and wrapped in harmonica and twang, it preaches a universal truth: “Know when to walk away, know when to run.” It’s not just country music, it is a survival strategy. A doctrine of timing, tact, and self-mastery.
Where I come from, we say music is the voice of the ancestors who never left. In those nights, they visited me, dressed in cowboy hats and wisdom, singing of pain, grace, and grit.
Therefore, no, country music is not mere entertainment. It is education in melody. It lifts, teaches, comforts, and commands. If listened to with intent, it doesn’t just move your feet, it moves your life.
Because life, like poker, is not about the hand you’re dealt. It is about how you play it, with courage, with clarity, and sometimes… with country music.
