George Jones is the Thomas Hardy of Country singers. Unlike Willie, George isn't about groovin' or feelin' good at the moment. Rather, he sings about "emotion recollected in tranquillity" (Wordsworth). Like Hardy (and Wordsworth), the terrible made palatable for the rest of us to later experience vicariously. (If we've been through such a thing, we know, and nod in recognition of, what he's now dumbing down. If we're new to the experience, we get a sense of how bad, but don't have to go through it ourselves.)
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