What I can tell you about Billy Ray’s version of “Achy Breaky Heart” is that the way he sings the line, “You can tell your dog to bite my leg,” is country as hell. He sings that line like it’s the funniest joke ever told, and that’s how you gotta sing every line, so that’s how he sings every line. But no matter how jovial and unthreatening Billy Ray might’ve been, there’s no getting around the fact that this song achieved the sort of blockbuster oversaturation that inspires Performative Hatred in even the kindest and most open-minded among us. Even the inevitable delightful “Weird Al” Yankovic
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