I've written this book full of funny lines from country songs and now everyone wants to know: How does a Yankee who cannot carry a tune end up as an expert on country music? I don't come by my interest honestly.

Music is a language I don't comprehend. A piano teacher once offered free lessons lor all six children in my family to prove my parents wrong when they said none of us was musical. That sweet old lady had to concede that every single Schwed was tone deaf.

And I admit it, I'm not a Southerner. I was born and reared in New York, where people also speak with accents for which they're ridiculed.

I didn't know Johnny Cash from Willie Nelson when I arrived in Nashville more than a dozen years ago as a cub reporter for United Press International. But other newshounds had had their fill of stories about the country craze, so I got custody of UPI's weekly music column by default.

I was terrified of being discovered an impostor. Each time I was supposed to interview Dolly Parton or some other star, I'd listen to her records as if I were cramming for an exam. The more I listened to country singers, the more I liked them.

They lack pretense. Ten minutes after you meet, they're telling you about their lousy love life and how much time they did in jail. They're great storytellers. And I really like the words in country songs.

First of all, you can understand them, unlike the lyrics of most rock songs on the radio. The love of language is evident. And they make me laugh.

The sentiments of these songs also taught me about the reverence for tradition and the Old Testament values many Southerners share. I heard in the lyrics defiant pride in rural roots as well as shame at being derided outside the region as naive and coarse. The anger and alienation of working people came through loud and clear. Country music gave me a sense of how much Southerners lament a lost way of life.

I started collecting the best lines, and over the years the collection grew. Seems like there's a line for every occasion. Some of my favorites are about love gone wrong: "I wouldn't take her to a dogfight even if I thought she could win" and "If I say I love you, consider me drunk" and "Hello, Mexico, and adios, baby, to you."

I've run out of room for cheating songs. You have to wonder how this many men and women can be violating their vows. There's "You're out doing what I'm here doing without," for example, and "Your wife is cheatin' on us again."

It's only fair to give equal time to fidelity. In country songs, though, even true love comes with a twist: "You're the reason our kids are ugly (but I love you anyway)," "If I don't love you, grits ain't groceries" and "Old King Kong was just a little monkey compared to my love for you."

Drinking songs have fallen from favor, what with the proliferation of non-beer beers and Jane Fonda workouts. You have to go back a few years to find "One drink's too many and a hundred's not enough," "What's made Milwaukee famous made a loser out of me" and "I'm gonna hire a wino to decorate our home." Perhaps my favorite drinking song of all I can't prove exists: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

That was one of a score of lines I couldn't validate in researching my book. Some of the funniest lines often turned out to be fabricated.

Some of the ones I never did identify by author and publisher: "From the gutter to you is not up," "If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all over you" and "My wife ran off with my best friend, and I miss him."

They may be authentic instead of cooked up in a bar late one night, but I couldn't prove it.

Which brings me to the thing I love most about country music. When you feel lousy, I mean really rotten, and you're in some run-down dump of a bar where you don't dare use the bathroom unless you're desperate, the howl of George Jones on the jukebox singing something sorrowful like "If drinkin' don't kill me, her memory will" is guaranteed to make you feel better.

Paula Schwed is the author of "I've Got Tears in My Ears From Lyin' on My Back in My Bed While I Cry Over You ... Country Music's Best (and Funniest) Lines" (Andrews and McMoel).