Dixie Chicks Not Ready to Make Nice

James Joyner @ Gone Hollywood | Thursday, March 23, 2006

Roger Friedman reports that the Dixie Chicks are out with their first new album in four years and that its first single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” deals with death threats and other negative reaction the band received for making derogatory comments about President Bush and the war in Iraq.

Three years ago, the Dixie Chicks were getting death threats for the stands they took on the Iraq war. Now, in the first single from their new album, they address those threats head on. The song is called “Not Ready to Make Nice.”

“And how in the world can the words that I said/Send somebody so over the edge/That they’d write me a letter/Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing/Or my life will be over.” I cannot recall in the history of pop, country, rock or R&B — maybe somewhere in rap — this issue coming up. In the same song, lead singer Natalie Maines warbles: “It’s a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her/Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.”

I’ve heard the album, called “Taking the Long Way,” due out May 23, and it’s a potential blockbuster. “Not Ready to Make Nice” is already making inroads on country radio after being leaked last week. According to Billboard’s Radio Monitor, the single jumped from 54 to 36 in one week, with 3,703 “spins” on country radio alone. The single is also listed as a 94 percent probable success on the Hit Predictor chart.

All of that is to say, country music listeners don’t seem to mind that the Dixie Chicks are speaking their minds about several topics including the war in Iraq and President Bush. They are not the first people you think of as war protesters or folk singers with a message. But the Dixie Chicks are back with their first album in four years, and they are mad as hell.

[...]

But “Nice” is sure to stir things up again for the group. In March 2003, lead singer Maines told an audience in London, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” A month later she softened a bit, telling Diane Sawyer: “It was the wrong wording with genuine emotion and questions and concern behind it. … Am I sorry that I asked questions and that I just don’t follow? No.”

She hasn’t changed her mind or her opinions. No one will ever accuse the Dixie Chicks of flip-flopping, that’s for sure.

It helps that their position on the war is now the majority view.

It’s one thing to refuse to buy their albums or go to their concerts; that’s the price of taking a stand. Threatening to kill someone because they utter unpopular words is despicable, if not un-American. Ironically, it’s what the enemy does.

To add more visibility to their protest, the Chicks should get naked again.

The Dixie Chicks pose nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly magazine released on April 24, 2003. Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Marti Seidel (L-R) said they posed nude in response to the controversy created by pro-war advocates over Maines' remark at a concert in London on March 10 that they were 'ashamed' President Bush was from their home state of Texas. (Entertainment Weekly)

Dixie Chicks Not Ready to Make Nice

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