via reddit.com
i’ve talked to a few slightly-younger friends about this and it always makes me feel so old to realize they don’t know what i’m talking about
specifically, what happened is that the dixie chicks’ lead singer natalie maines said “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas” at a concert in england in 2003. the crowds at the concert cheered. people here were less thrilled.
this was in the days before twitter or social media of any kind so death threats poured in by letters and screaming protestors on tv. i remember seeing footage of people in steamrollers running over piles of discarded dixie chick cd’s. people telling their kids to yell profanities about the chicks on tv. it was rabid. all i could imagine comparing it to were the people who burned beatles albums when john lennon said they were more popular than Jesus.
i was in middle school at the time and just kind of getting into country music – i grew up in a very blue area/with a blue family so i was happy to hear natalie denounce the war and Bush. I had not yet made the connection between country music and hardline conservatism and i was aghast at the scale of the reaction. death threats?? mass destruction of their cds?? multiple (if not most) southern radio stations refusing to play any of their music??? TO THIS DAY some stations still get angry calls if they play an old dixie chick song!!
i remember reading a Time magazine cover story on them and natalie said something like “wow if these folks just had us in a five-cd players on a loop with reba and whoever the hell else, they’re just country fans. they’re not our fans.” aka no bending to overwhelming public pressure to make some fake-ass apology. no whimpering for forgiveness. just, they don’t like what we have to say? oh haha well FUCK ‘EM.
as a matter of fact their first single after this whole clusterfuck (3 years later btw) was called “Not Read to Make Nice” bc natalie was sick of managers trying to tell her to, well, make nice. it was the debut single from their masterpiece album “Taking the Long Way,” where almost every song touches on the fall-out from that incident. It won album of the year & best country album, and “not ready to make nice” won best country performance by a duo or group with vocal, song of the year, and record of the year at the Grammys. the video is a tad on the nose but it’s powerful singing and intense imagery and poignant, painful lyrics. (i listened to it a lot at the end of 2016.) i mean, this is country music at its finest and most powerful – personal, gutsy, gutting:
I made my bed, and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets, and I don’t mind saying
It’s a sad, sad story
When a mother will teach her daughter
That she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Saying that I better
Shut up and sing
Or my life will be over?2006 was also the release date of a documentary about the whole incident and the ensuing album. It’s called “Shut Up & Sing,” a phrase they heard a lot in the fallout.
Sound familiar? The chicks were on my mind a lot during the 2016 campaign, when people were screeching at celebrities for daring to voice political opinions (while of course they themselves failed to notice the terrifying irony of their cheering on a celebrity candidate spewing wholly uninformed political opinions). Buzzfeed did a whole piece on country music not knowing how to handle Trump because the chicks’ careers were all but ended by the crack heard ‘round the world.
i’m always here for the chicks. what they did seems more incredible now than ever. they stood their ground, knowing they paid a price. they didn’t apologize. they didn’t make weak excuses. if they could do that over bush then yeah i think another country star or two could stand to alienate some fans over that trumpster fire.
Published
Question of Smoke 