Tickle Your Taint Eclectic Music Reviews: Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ‘Em”

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Sunday, March 3, 2024

Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ‘Em”

By Gullypunk

While I have great respect for Beyoncé’s work, I could not pick her face out of a line up or name one of her songs before her latest hit, “Texas Hold ‘Em.” I also don’t follow pop culture, and I generally side with those who dismiss corporate pop music offhand. But dammit, “Texas Hold ‘Em” is one hell of an ear worm.

I’m told this song has now hit the top of the country charts. If so, it makes me happy that Beyoncé’s work might be a small challenge to the dominantly white conservative formulaic horseshit pumped out of Nashville on a weekly basis.

Old country music often grappled with real issues: socioeconomics, working-class woes, and even themes of women’s liberation in songs like Loretta Lynn’s 1975 classic “The Pill.”

While Beyoncé’s new song is still pop music, and it is not remotely radical, the lyrics for “Texas Hold ‘Em” are closer to the theme of old country songs than the bubble gum vomit that makes up most pop music today. The song laments severe weather and heat waves— it notes escape in dive bars, which I read as an attempt to find joy, among the hardships of climate change.

“Texas Hold ‘Em” is not a critique of the broken systems that are driving humanity to our demise, but at least it recognizes that Rome is burning—against a subdued fiddle track that starts halfway through the song.

I’m happy to see “Texas Hold ‘Em” is being played far and wide. And, fuck me, it’s going to be stuck in my head for a while.