“Country music has fans wherever people are departing rural areas. In other words, worldwide. Turns out that the weeping tunes about better days can be understood even without understanding the lyrics.

That crying slide guitar is the perfect accompaniment for the universal nostalgia that millions of migrants experience in their new urban homes. They miss the countryside they recently left, and they can hear their own yearning for it in Kenny Rogers’s deep longing.”

Kevin Kelly on the international appeal of country music, as part of an essay on the reasons more people than ever before in history are choosing to live in urban areas, even when that means living in a slum.