Do you count yourself among the offended former fans of the Dixie Chicks? Were you one of the people who loved them before you knew they harbored left-leaning sentiments and front-woman Natalie made her Bush-bashing remarks at a London show on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Maybe you went to one of those country radio station-sponsored symbolic lynchings and stomped on a batch of Dixie Chicks CD jewel cases to show your patriotism? Did you cheer when Reba McEntire publicly scolded them? Or when that eloquent statesman Toby Keith put up that big sign of Natalie hugging Saddam at his own show? And now that their new CD “Taking The Long Way” is out, are you boycotting it? Complaining to any country station that plays it? Well then you and me, we ain’t friends.
I’m from Texas. I love country music. I lived in Dixie Chick Natalie Maines’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas, for seven years. I remember the original pre-Natalie incarnation of the Chicks, back when they were based in Dallas, when they dressed up in kitschy matching outfits and released records with titles like “Thank Heavens for Dale Evans.” I am the formerly silent liberal-redneck constituency that loves the Chicks for their music and their politics. I’m ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas, too. I’m thrilled to see the band come out swinging with the taunting lead single “Not Ready to Make Nice.” And it’s good to see that “Taking the Long Way” debuted at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart, selling more than 526,000 copies.
You jewel case stompers feel betrayed, I know. I’ve read the articles where they quote various regional radio station program directors, all giving variations on the same quote: “The Dixie Chicks are over. They’ve got bad attitudes. We’ll never play them again. They keep rubbing salt in the wound.” Well boo-hoo. You can’t believe that someone who made records you sang along to and loved could be so unlike you, could be so disrespectful to someone as clearly loveable as our own President? Then welcome to the disillusioned club. We liberals have been living in that state of disgruntled shock for six years already. Honestly, you should be grateful that the only people who’ve made you this pissed off in that amount of time have been Michael Moore and trio of country singers.
We like to think that people who sing songs we enjoy and take to our hearts share our opinions. We want to identify with them. When US Weekly splashes photos of the famous engaged in mundane activities like littering and going to Costco accompanied by the dopey tagline: “Celebrities! They’re just like US!” what they really mean is, “You WISH they were just like you so much that you think a clandestine shot of them picking up their kid from school means that they feel the same way you do about American Idol, evolution, gay marriage, abortion and American foreign policy.” And it doesn’t. So you’re mad. And now you’re extra miffed that the Chicks could sway half a million traitorous citizens into buying their latest piece of anti-American propaganda.
Red-state liberals rejoice!
But guess what? They did. And what it means is that you may have the Bush administration on your side of the pop culture war, you may even have a slim majority of America’s citizenry still on your side, but the rest of us are not going away any time soon. We are the people you think don’t exist, the ones advertisers can’t quite pin down, the ones who keep Molly Ivins employed. We are the red-state liberals. We vote and we buy CDs.
Having said all this, the Dixie Chicks will most likely be downsizing their career this time around. It just seems unlikely that they will win back enough new fans to replace the ones that bailed. The numbers may be nice for now but they aren’t the same as the near-platinum first week for their previous CD “Home.” That one galloped out of the barn with 780,000 pickin’ n’ grinnin’ units moved. For all anyone knows those 526,000 sold may be it. And gold records don’t keep anyone signed to major labels for very long these days. It’s about brain-shattering multi-platinum success in the music industry. Anything less is failure. And the new CD isn’t very country. It’s cleanly-produced pop-rock that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Sheryl Crow album. So really, the Chicks’ future as a big-draw touring and recording act is still kind of a mystery.
But for the band, the real issue is money versus artistic freedom. And the Chicks have money. They have a lot of it. They have enough to attempt to donate a million dollars to the Red Cross and have it rejected by that organization. And they’ve got at least 526,000 people still in their fan base. So if country radio makes good with the d-i-v-o-r-c-e and if the fans who, according to Maines, kept their CDs “in the changer with Toby and Reba” decide to stay resentful and if the band has to stop playing big arenas and move down to smaller theater venues, then so what? They’ve got talent, they’ve got songs, they’ve got fans. They’ll be fine. They get to keep their souls and they get to uphold the tradition of the loud-mouthed, rebellious, rabble-rousing Texan. They won’t be joining Vanilla Ice on “The Surreal Life” anytime soon. And you, Chicks stomper? You suddenly have free time you formerly spent listening to their music. Why not go have a bake sale? Raise some money to help buy a soldier some body armor? Oh wait, private citizens can’t do that anymore. Well then, guess y’all can just go listen to that new Toby Keith CD again. Thanks government!
Dave White is the author of “Exile In Guyville.” His music writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Advocate and Instinct. Find more of him at .