US research shows that country music fans have the highest suicide rate. “The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability.” Hat tip to The Road to Surfdom.
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Tags: statistics, suicide
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I’m reminded of an old joke: If you play country songs backwards they’re much happier — you get your wife back, your house back, your job back, you quit drinking…
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And apparently, the slower the music they play at the bar, the more people drink.
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The suicide rate could very well have increased due to the people who ARE NOT country music fans, killing themselves to end the torture. After all, the article said the study was in metropolitan areas, not rural.
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@shank: Oh well spotted, thank you!
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i love this statistic and hate country music
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The only good country song to me is the devil went down to georgia
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You know I dont agree I LOVE country and I never tried to commit suicide
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Lol. I find this slighty funny do to people thinking of people who listen to hard rock and Metal songs being depressed. This proves everyone wrong. It would help though if people who listen to country music would quit imbreding….
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So what? The rate of suicide may have absolutely no correlation between the music and the people who committed suicide. Listening to country music does not make you more likely to commit suicide. It just means that at the time of this study that’s what the numbers pointed to. If taken any other day it may or may not point to a different genre. Also, I really enjoy when people slam country music. I listen to country music and rarely hear people like me be so rude about other genres of music. I guess it just goes to show that we country folk are comfortable with who we are and don’t need to ridicule someone else’s opinion. If you like country that’s fine, but I’m not going to insult you for the type of music you listen to if you do not. To each their own.
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@Liz: And I’m not going to — and in fact didn’t — insult your or anyone about their choice of music either. Certainly a couple of commenters made negative comments, but not I. Do I detect a little over-sensitivity on this issue?
Two points, since you’re here…
- You perhaps have “correlation” wrong. There is a correlation, or at least the study showed one, but causation is the missing element.
- This post is more than four years old. How did you come to be reading it?
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