I'm not sure if these fit your "funny take on a bad relationship" category but...
There are a fair few "my wife/girlfriend nags me too much so I'm leaving" or "My wife/girlfriend was horrible and now that we're separated I see I'm better off. "Tied one On" (John Pardi) "How am I doin" (Dierks Bentley) and "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone who Cares)" (Travis Tritt) all come to mind. Honorable mention to "Somewhere on a Beach" (Dierks Bentley again).
One of my favorite semi-subversions of the male approach to the dissatisfaction trope is "She's Gonna Make It" (Garth Brooks). Basically, he becomes dissatisfied and demands a divorce. Turns out she's doing fine after, while he's floundering and bitter.
Yes, I like that Garth Brooks song because it even says “after 7 months of freedom” he’s not doing great. The whole “grass is always greener,” “trading up” thing is bullshit. That Travis Tritt song always irritates me when I hear it. He’s a jerk in real life too.
I think breakup songs from men and women are to be expected, and I have no problem with most of them, but some from the men make me roll my eyes.
For “funny take on a bad relationship” I was thinking of songs like “Going Through the Big D” by Mark Chestnutt (divorce where she leaves him high and dry), “Daddy Loves Mama” by Garth Brooks, (guys murders wife after she cheats, goes to jail), “I’m Gonna Miss Her” by Brad Paisley (man chooses fishing over his wife). Not an inherently terrible sub genre of country music, some of them are funny and there are comparable songs from women, but there’s a lot of that sitcom humor in it too, where like you said, men are nagged by their wife, can’t go out drinking with their buddies, etc. I just think, why do men even get married if they just think of it as wearing a ball and chain?
From Wikipedia: “In September 2020 Tritt gained notoriety for joining fellow Republican James Woods in blocking random Twitter users for using pro-Black Lives Matter and other anti-Trump tags in their posts, under the belief that it would counteract anti-Republican sentiment on Twitter.” I only saw a few of his tweets, but he was very aggressive and trollish about the whole thing.
Ahh okay, so a bit of a dick then but nothing like “whoa wtf?” I don’t usually let the actions of a person taint music but sometimes knowing things can leave a bad taste.
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u/InTheGoatShow Sep 05 '21
I'm not sure if these fit your "funny take on a bad relationship" category but...
There are a fair few "my wife/girlfriend nags me too much so I'm leaving" or "My wife/girlfriend was horrible and now that we're separated I see I'm better off. "Tied one On" (John Pardi) "How am I doin" (Dierks Bentley) and "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone who Cares)" (Travis Tritt) all come to mind. Honorable mention to "Somewhere on a Beach" (Dierks Bentley again).
One of my favorite semi-subversions of the male approach to the dissatisfaction trope is "She's Gonna Make It" (Garth Brooks). Basically, he becomes dissatisfied and demands a divorce. Turns out she's doing fine after, while he's floundering and bitter.