I am a die-hard country girl living in New England (Rhode Island represent!) and I always hear the same thing when I tell people I listen to country music.

"How do you listen to that garbage?"

"All they sing about is banging their cousin and drinking beer"

"That redneck s*** sucks!"

You get the idea here.

But what most people tend to neglect is that they've probably only heard one or two country songs. If you actually take the time to listen to the genre, their music goes so much deeper than entailed.

Yes, there are songs such as "Big Green Tractor" and "Drink a Beer" but there are no country songs that are about incest or hooking up with their cousins, that's just an extremely old-fashioned southern stereotype. Not all the songs sound like they're from Alabama ready to drink sweet tea with their Pap either.

Country music is all about people writing about their lives, the memories they've lived and the dreams they someday hope to accomplish. When you listen to songs such as "Life Changes" by Thomas Rhett or "Raymond" by Brett Eldredge, you realize those "country hicks" sing about so much more than it seems.

Thomas Rhett's newest album is written solely on the past 10 years of his life. With songs about him and his wife's love story as well as them adopting their daughter and finding out his wife was pregnant shortly after bringing her home. Brett Eldredge's song Raymond is all about how his grandmother has Alzheimer's and how she forgot who he was.

There are also the more fun sides of country music, you may think it sounds like hilly billy nonsense, but us country lovers enjoy nothing more than rolling the window down and cranking our favorite country tunes.

My favorite is when people say "but you can't dance to country music!"

Are you sure?

All around the world people country line dance. And while they don't always dance to country songs, that is where it all came from! Line dancing may be one of the easier styles of dancing, but is something so fun that everyone can enjoy it! It's great for all ages too. I know kids as young as 5 that line dance and some as old as 82 that go line dancing!

Yeah, you read that right, I said 82!!

The fact of the matter is, just because you might not find the genre of music to your standards, doesn't give you the right to bash it to someone that does.

Do you ever see country fans bashing other genres the way that EVERYONE bashes country music? I can't even answer the "what's your favorite song?" question without someone saying, as rudely as ever, "Ew, you like country music?"

Yes, I do, and I will proudly blast my Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton and scream it at the top of my lungs while everyone stares at me with disgust. Your opinion will never change my love of country music. So Drink a Beer, climb up on that Big Green Tractor, roll your windows down and Cruise on out!