Country Music as Modern Ironic Villanelle

Here is Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" as an example of a villanelle:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.


Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


A villanelle has five stanzas of three lines each and a final stanza of four lines. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the 2nd and 4th stanzas. The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the las line of the 3rd and 5th stanzas. These refrains follow each other to become the last two lines of the poem. Note the repetition of the line, "the art of losing isn't hard to master" and yet note that this has been questioned and been problematized and been made ironic by the end of the poem. Clearly, it is hard to master. In the same way, country music often repeats one line as a refrain, but has the meaning change throughout the course of the song, often undermining the line by the end of the poem.

Now, the lyrics to "Stay" by Sugarland:

I been sittin’ here starin’

At the clock on the wall

And I been layin’ here prayin’

Prayin’ she won’t call

It’s just another call from home

And you’ll get it and be gone

And I’ll be cryin’
And I’ll be beggin’ you, baby

Beg you not to leave

But I’ll be left here waitin’

With my heart on my sleeve

Oh, for the next time we’ll be here

Seems like a million years

And I think I’m dyin’
What do I have to do to make you see

She can’t love you like me

Why don’t you stay

I’m down on my knees

I’m so tired of bein’ lonely

Don’t I give you what you need

When she calls you to go

There is one thing you should know

We don’t have to live this way

Baby, why don’t you stay

You keep tellin’ me, baby

There will come a time

When you will leave her arms

And forever be in mine

But I don’t think that’s the truth

And I don’t like bein’ used
And I’m tired ‘a waitin’
It’s too much pain to have to bear

To love a man you have to share
Why don’t you stay

I’m down on my knees

I’m so tired of bein’ lonely

Don’t I give you what you need

When she calls you to go

There is one thing you should know

We don’t have to live this way

Baby, why don’t you stay

I can’t take it any longer

But my will is gettin’ stronger

And I think I know just what I have to do

I can’t waste another minute

After all that I put in it

I’ve given you my best

Why does she get the best of you

So next time you’ll find

You wanna leave her bed for mine
Why don’t you stay

I’m up off my knees

I’m so tired of bein’ lonely

You can’t give me what I need

When she begs you not to go

There is one thing you should know

I don’t have to live this way

Baby, why don’t you stay