Alan Jackson - "I Still Like Bologna"

With "Sissy's Song" being as serious and sentimental as a song can get, what would Alan Jackson do for that song's follow-up single?  Would he return to the silly songs like "Country Boy" or retain some sentimentality? Perhas he'd get both silly and sentimenal?

As I write this review, I'm sitting in front of an iBook, hooked up to a sweet speaker system. My iBook's hard drive is just loaded with country music MP3s and MPEGs. To my left is a TV with a cable box on top of it, and to my right is my cell phone, which of course is dead because I can never find the charger. Also on my desk are a can of iced tea and a pickled sausage from the gas station. Just a few steps outside is the forest, and less than a half-mile away is Lake Huron.

What I'm trying to say is, I can definitely identify with the sentiment that Alan Jackson expresses in his new song, "I Still Like Bologna". He starts off the song by saying that the Internet is so mainstream now that it's nearly impossible to escape (even if your modem suddenly quits working, like mine did — thank God for wireless Internet!). Even though he says that he isn't quite up on everything digital, he still has a cell phone, an HD television, a laptop, et cetera — yet he still likes the simple things that all the technology in the world can't provide: bologna on white bread, the sound and feel of nature, and oh yeah, a good woman's love.

While that list may sound fairly pedestrian, especially for a country song (does he also like his chicken fried and a cold beer on a Friday night?), every note seems to ring true here. The lyrics find Alan in his smoothest narrative mode, singing each lyric like he truly believes that all the iPods, iPhones, iMacs, iWhatevers in the world can't replace the things that have been around since before the abacus, much less the computer. The song has that same three-minute, positive, not-too-country, up-tempo sound that he's excelled at from day one.

I may not even like bologna, or several other processed lunchmeats for that matter — but I think that this is one slice that doesn't feel artificial or bland in the least. And that's no, um, bologna.

You can read many lyrics and chords for Alan Jackson songs by clicking here.

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