ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the sounds encapsulated on a record compel a listener to find the song's cultural meaning well beyond the boundaries of the single performance captured on that record. Employing The Judds’ “John Deere Tractor” (1984) as a case study for interpreting a close listening, this chapter identifies elements of form and structure, harmonic progressions, and timbral anomalies involving an autoharp that are sonic indicators of the song's rich and meandering cultural history that leads through bluegrass to 1960s psychedelia. These aspects complicate the recording's reception within two competing narratives of country music's history. The analysis also considers how the record prompts listeners to engage philosophically with concepts of time and chronology, creating an experience that is perceived simultaneously as new and old. This analysis ultimately suggests that an attentive, close listening to the sonic content of a recording uncovers compelling extramusical narratives that lead far beyond the record itself.
