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Thursday, April 24, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:08 AM:
Dixie Chicks Fire Back at CriticsLead singer says she spoke against Bush, war out of frustration
Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much. As do her critics. She's just a country singer, for God's sake. That said, country singers, like rock singers, have a product that has a certain appeal to a certain demographic, and the "my country, right or wrong" demographic and country music listener demographic strongly overlap. Natalie Maines fronts a group called the Dixie Chicks; the first word of the title hearkens to a time when the South was different, a time when it was genteel and agricultural and... enslaved and lynched blacks and fought a war over the right to do so. Tom Lehrer - to name another liberal songwiter - captured this in "I wanna go back to Dixie," which goes in part like this:
I wanna go back to DixieTom Lehrer said it, not me, so don't bother to write if you love old Dixie. My fiancée is from New Orleans so I must like the place too. But a lot of people don't. You could say that the Dixie Chicks were highly insensitive to these people in choosing their name. Insensitive to those who think of Dixie and the Confederate Flag as being intertwined. However, the name speaks to those who have an image of the South - Civil War and all - as a place of courtly landowners and of good ol' boys and of something... different... from the cold, business-oriented North.
Take me back to dear ol' Dixie
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me
Ol' times there are not forgotten
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton
And waitin' for the Robert E. Lee
It was never there on time
...
Oh, poll tax
How I love ya, how I love ya
My dear old poll tax
...
I wanna talk with southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years
The land of the boll weevil
Where the laws are medieval
...
Be it ever so decadent
There's no place like home
People who romanticize the South probably thought that Dixie Chicks was a great name for a few Southern gals belting out some songs. I don't know enough about them to know if any of them thought the name was ironic or post-modern or whatever buzzword is the rage these days, but there's no question that they got good ol' boy and good ol' gal listeners from the name. Maybe Natalie Maines didn't realize that people who could romanticize the South in loving the Dixie Chicks would also be able to romanticize the USA into a nation in whose actions they unstintingly believed, but you'd think a girl on a European tour would be more sophisticated about such things.
And so it is that the Dixie Chicks are afraid that free speech is threatened if a group selling an image sees its sales drop off when that image is tainted. And we see record company execs fretting that their singers will kill the images they've spent big bucks crafting. And we see radio stations making a mockery over one of the more reliable artists on their playlists (from what I understand) for a few days of buzz. And we see people who ought to know better trying to put so much significance into bubblegum country that they'll give up one of the cooler sounds of the genre out of political sensitivity. Yeesh. And this is country!
Though these pages will show me to be fairly conservative and unquestionably pro-USA, I must confess that I have not purged Stockhausen from my CD collection, and have no intention of doing so. I will not do him the pleasure of letting him think that what he has to say about political events has any impact whatsoever upon the reality in which we live. John Adams could follow up Nixon Goes to China with Bush Goes to Hell and "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" will remain in my collection because it's a fine example of what modern composers can and should do musically but rarely do. Wiser Dixie Chicks' fans will likewise buy the CDs if they like the sound, not if they don't, and politely let the gals know they're ready for more music if Natalie Maines mistakes another concert venue for the Hardball College Tour.
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