Feminism and Respectability in “Daddy’s Money” by Ricochet
I am decidedly not a fan of country music, but I did spend a good part of my rural childhood listening to country music radio and cassette mixtapes of country music that my mother made. An exception to my general distaste for the genre is “Daddy’s Money” (1996) by Ricochet. This song is about falling for a woman that has everything: she’s beautiful and rich, amongst other things that are not always valued in women. Not only is it catchy and fun to sing along to, but it gently subverts the misogyny long present in the greater tradition of country songs, and our contemporary patriarchal society. “Daddy’s Money” puts value on this woman’s fully-formed personality and independence, and is a contrast to other country songs like “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks, which is essentially about a “country” guy showing up and to and ruining his ex-girlfriend’s “classy” party, which is deemed acceptable and even admirable. Other country music that might be deemed “love songs” overtly reinforce patriarchal gender values, such as “Firecracker” by Josh Turner, which is essentially about a woman being desirable because she is good at sex. This exploration will assume that the subjects are heterosexual since the singer is a man and his ideal partner in question is clearly portraying a woman. Is “Daddy’s Money” the feminist country anthem that it seems? Let’s analyze.
The main praise of the woman in question is that
She’s got her daddy’s money, her mama’s good looks/more laughs than a stack of comic books/a wild imagination, a college education/add it all up, it’s a deadly combination/She’s a good bass fisher, a dynamite kisser/country as a turnip green/she’s got her daddy’s money, her mama’s good looks/and look who’s lookin’ at me
The speaker here places value on this woman’s appearance and her money, but also on her being smart, educated, and funny. This is a departure from the common [but erroneous] notion that women aren’t funny, or that if a woman is funny, she must also be unattractive. In addition to being funny, she’s also imaginative, which suggests she might have a creative career or an arty hobby that the speaker will value as their relationship progresses instead of writing it off as a way to kill time or earn “pin money” before marriage. I would like to think that the reference to “comic books” means that the speaker is not here for any “fake geek girl” bullshit, but I think that one might be a stretch.
The speaker sees her tertiary education as a bonus along with her natural intelligence, which shows he is not looking for a woman who he thinks might be easier to control due to her lack of education, which flies in the face of that “Men Prefer Debt-Free Virgins Without Tattoos” article that went viral in 2018 for being a gross show of internalized misogyny, especially where “debt-free” was a not-so-subtle code for “without a university degree.” This man appreciates that this woman has the intellectual capacity for critical thinking needed to obtain a degree and that she is independent enough to live on her own. It is of course entirely possible that she does not have student debt because her family’s wealth covered the cost of her tuition, but unsurprisingly this snappy bop does not specify.
Her talent at fishing is another implication that she is independent. Very literally, she can provide food for herself. Symbolically, she has taken a pursuit that men have used to subtly signal that they are a “catch” (pun aggressively intended) in the dating arena and made it hers, thereby subverting the trope of men as providers. She doesn’t need a man, which makes her attraction to the speaker special. She is choosing a relationship with the speaker, and he is excited to be chosen. The flip side of her fishing skills can be taken to mean that she’s a “cool girl,” a fantasy of ideal womanhood that I find best described by Gillian Flynn in Gone Girl. This woman’s fishing prowess can be read as something “cool” and masculine which makes her “not like other girls,” which implies that women, in general, are weak and uncool. By having a “cool” hobby, she is special because she’s “one of the boys.” She appreciates good [read: masculine] hobbies and does not bother with frivolous [read: feminine] ones.
While these parts of the song subvert common misogynist beliefs about the desirability of women, other parts of “Daddy’s Money” are deeply entrenched in the conservative patriarchal respectability politics common in the United States. Church and God are brought up often in this tight three-minute song and signals the virtuousness, and therefore worthiness, of the woman in question. The first words of the song are “Can’t concentrate on the preacher preaching/my attention span done turned off/I’m honed in on that angel singing/up there in the choir loft,” which shows that both halves of the couple regularly attend the same church and that the woman is very involved — enough to be in the choir. The speaker does not name church attendance or even Christianity specifically when listing the woman’s desirable attributes, but it is clear that her dedication to the Church is important. Desiring a partner to be from the same religious community is not necessarily a negative thing, but references to organized Christianity is a hallmark of the country genre. In this way, “Daddy’s Money” keeps to “traditional” values touted in country music. Further, the speaker appeals to God to help him win her, even though we know she is already into him: “Lord if you got any miracles handy/maybe you could grant me one/just let me walk down the aisle and say ‘I do’/to that angel with a choir robe on.” In short, she’s “wife material.”
The idea of “wife material” is often an impossible standard for women to determine whether or not they are worthy of the ultimate honor for a woman: heterosexual matrimony. “Wife material” means being simultaneously a strong, ambitious individual and a domestic goddess, attending to their man’s emotional and physical needs. A woman who is “wife material” will put her man first — above her own needs, fun hobbies, and of course, her career — and engage in unpaid labor over things that are not her job in the first place, like that man whose “girlfriend test” hinges on expecting his female partner to clean up a mess he made in his own apartment, entirely by himself. The speaker in “Daddy’s Money” is certainly using some of the attributes of “wife material,” but there is no evidence that he is expecting her to be his domestic or emotional caretaker. Through asking God to help him win her in marriage, he acknowledges that she could choose to be with someone else (or with no one at all) and that he would be lucky to be her husband. He is also acknowledging that he needs to work to be worthy of her — he is not operating from the mindset that he is a catch and that women should be working for his approval. He knows that she has an independent life and it is up to him to find a way to fit into her world; he is not expecting her to shrink for him.
“Wife material” also includes the assumption that the woman in question is not “promiscuous” or “slutty.” This behavior-policing seeks to keep women from owning their sexuality, and thereby control over their bodies. The woman in this song fits this aspect of “wife material” as well. There are multiple references to her being an “angel,” which signals she is not “promiscuous.” However, we also know she is “dynamite kisser” and is distracting the speaker in church, which signals that’s she’s not “frigid” or a “tease.” This woman walks the seemingly impossible tightrope of being sexually available while not being “slutty,” and is therefore worthy of becoming a wife. The speaker values her independence and wit, but ultimately, he is not seeking a partner that is too radically feminist. He enjoys her appeal as a “modern woman,” but still wants to uphold “traditional” values of respectability (and therefore heterosexual patriarchy) within this relationship.
I would love to hail this underrated and catchy country song as a radical anthem in which men discard toxic masculinity and patriarchal values to embrace a feminist utopia where women are appreciated as funny and as providers and in which the ideal [heterosexual] relationship is not predicated on gendered power hierarchies, but there is more to it. It makes no mention of violence, overt misogyny, or tractors, which makes it special and progressive in the context of country music, but it is not radically feminist at its core. It’s catchy and cute, and I still love it. As fellow subversive feminist musical legend Rebecca Bunch would say, “the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.”
