7. Johnny Cash is Yukon-style country.

I tried being cliché and playing Johnny Cash as I rolled through Idaho and Oregon farmlands. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Cash's music worked better in the vast Yukon Territory where his oft-anguished cries of desperation, heartbreak, killing, and loneliness fit the open landscape and big skies perfectly, and was deeply satisfying.

8. Dub rolls across the farmland?

While Johnny Cash proved surprisingly wrong in farm country, Jamaican dub was surprisingly right. Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Skatalites, Sly & Robbie all worked beautifully, a rolling beat across the rolling farmland, an echo across empty spaces. Given that many a reggae artist came from the country, it makes sense dub fills this void so supremely.