What is the essence or nature of country music?

Question

What does it mean for a song to be "country"? What type of song counts as being country?

Answer 1

The term "Country Music" has only been in use since the 1940's. It replaced the more humiliating term "Hillbilly Music"

It's a blend of popular music originating in the US south.
This most popular genre, Country Music has it's roots in traditional folk music, Celtic, blues, gospel, hokum, and old-time.

To understand the type of mucic which is classified Country, you need to know of the genre's sub-genres.
The following exerpt is from Wikipedia:
Country music is a catch-all category that embraces several different music genres. Each style is unique in its execution, use of rhythms, and its chord structures.
Country music subgenres include:

* Nashville sound (the pop-like music very popular in the 1960s)
* Bluegrass, a fast mandolin, banjo, and fiddle-based music popularized by Bill Monroe and by Flatt and Scruggs
* Western, which encompasses traditional Western cowboy campfire ballads and Hollywood cowboy music made famous by Roy Rogers, The Sons of the Pioneers, and Gene Autry
* Western swing, a sophisticated dance music popularized by Bob Wills
* The Bakersfield sound which used the new Fender Telecaster guitars, a big drum beat, and dance style music that would catch your attention like "a freight train running" (Buck Owens) (popularized by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard)
* Outlaw country made famous in the 1970s by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, David Allan Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker, Alex Nimmo, Mickey Newbury, Kris Kristofferson and Hank Williams, Jr.
* Cajun and zydeco
* Honky tonk
* Old-time music
* Rockabilly
* Neotraditional country

Honky Tonk music embodied the spirit of Country Music; dancing and drinking, and of loving and then losing the one you love.

Of course the instruments used has much to do with classifying Country music also.
There is information on this at the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_music

EDIT:
I take umbrage at yungbullet815's "white trash" comment.
As of 2007, country is the most popular radio format in America.
It reaches 77.3 million adults--almost 40 percent of the adult population--every single week.

Answer 2

aimed at the hard workin' man, good ol' boys, love, family...the backbone of America~ people who work hard and find a way to get by, feed their family, clothe the kids ...country music is all about life, love, laughter and the freedom to be just who you are.

Ciao~

Answer 3

it means its aimed at hicks and hillbillys and white trash, usually about big trucks cheatin women drinkin or jail if its old school, relationships and being patriotic if its new school