It Ain't City Music was filmed at the National Country Music Contest at Lake Whippoorwill in Warrenton, Virginia, in 1972. The people interviewed in the film speak nostalgically about their rural origins, their folks, the Depression, and hard times, but now many have left the hills and farms and moved into suburbia, and into the city. Increasingly the themes of country music songs deal with the complications of life away from the farm. "Any country song you hear nowadays, the guy's either in jail or just got divorced," notes a man who continues, "but it's their lives and they write songs about it."