Taking the Long Way: How the Dixie Chicks Can Help Us Through These Dark Times
When radio abandoned the Dixie Chicks in the wake of anti-war comments, they had nothing left to lose. Given the result of the presidential election, neither do women. What the number-one-selling female band of all time can teach us about fearlessness and action in a misogynistic world.
“You Don’t Like the Sound of the Truth Coming From My Mouth” — Truth №2, Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks reentered the cultural consciousness earlier this year when they embarked on their first world tour in a decade. They reinvigorated criticism against them earlier this month when they performed at the Country Music Awards at Beyoncé’s invitation. But it has been 13 years since the original controversy that instigated a vile and disproportionate backlash against the band when lead singer Natalie Maines spoke out against then-President Bush and the impending war in Iraq, saying at a concert in England, “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” Her comments struck a violently hateful chord with conservative Americans specifically because they were said by a woman who stepped out of her place to say them. They struck a chord because America is a fiercely misogynistic country.
Misogyny played an overwhelming role in why Hillary Clinton did not win the presidential election. It is what has shaped every news story and media narrative about her for the past several decades, it is what kept liberal men and women from embracing her as fervently as they could and should have, and it is what — for some Trump voters — ultimately sealed their support for an absolute cretin of a candidate. Others have written about misogyny’s role in the election (see Anne Helen Petersen, Sarah Churchwell, and Rebecca Traister), eloquently and convincingly expressing what boils down to this: people hate women so much.
Trump’s win can also be blamed on many other types of hate, including racism, religious intolerance, xenophobia, and homophobia. But of these, misogyny is perhaps the least understood. It is a tricky kind of hatred: like air, it is everywhere but it is almost impossible to get people to see it. No one wants to admit that it is as rampant as it is, and no one wants to admit that they have it within themselves. It is easier to deny the truth, which is that it rules your life and your opinions and your actions and your relationships. Because if you were raised in America (and, let’s be real, in most other countries), you have internalized misogyny. Look no further than the statistic that 53 percent of white women cast their vote for Trump: those women hate themselves and are simply not aware of it.
“When He Swung the Bat and I Found Myself Laying Flat, I Wondered…” — Truth №2, Dixie Chicks
In 2003, Maines’ anti-war comments unleashed a tidal wave of misogynistic anger toward the band that was sexually charged, threatening, and undoubtedly sincere. Their detractors were not just despicable Internet trolls who represent the cesspool of our society (and now, apparently, the presidency). There was a nationwide ban on country radio, protesters outside their concerts, and attacks from political punditry. Bill O’Reilly, for instance, asked on national television whether the Dixie Chicks were “callow foolish women who deserve to be slapped around.” And then there were the death threats.
At the time, it felt like the sexist, vitriolic response to Maines’ comments was so blatant that for once it was easy to point to and say, “There! There it is! THAT is misogyny, don’t you believe me?” Of course, most did not. The misogynistic actions toward the Chicks were defended in the name of patriotism, nationalism, and support for the troops, just as cultural misogyny is currently being downplayed or ignored in analysis after analysis of how America elected Trump. If you want to talk about turnout, misogyny is the only way to explain the combined lack of fervor for Hillary by otherwise steadfast Democrats and the outright distaste for her by others. So many of us see it and know it in our bones. But will anyone believe us?
“I’m Not Ready To Make Nice. I’m Not Ready To Back Down.” — Not Ready to Make Nice, Dixie Chicks
The persecution of the Dixie Chicks was chronicled in Shut Up and Sing, an outstanding documentary film released in 2006. The film was not intended to be about the incident. Filming had already started when Maines made the comment at a show in Shepherd’s Bush, England. And so not only did the documentary capture the moment, but it captured the band’s honest reactions as the situation unfolded, having no idea what lay ahead, whether harm would come to them and their families, or what would happen to their career and ability to make music.
Recall that the spring of 2003 was a scary time. America was on the eve of war and the country was tense. One of the moments captured by the filmmakers, before they had any idea what their documentary would ultimately be about, was Maines asking one of the roadies whether there was an update on if the U.S. was going to war. It was on a lot of people’s minds, daily. That feeling of fear and uncertainty is one of several parallels between what happened to the Dixie Chicks and what happened in the 2016 presidential election. Since the election, many Americans have felt such strong fear and uncertainty about the future that it is affecting their mental health and physical well-being.
What ultimately lay ahead for the Dixie Chicks is what was described above: the attacks, the boycotts, the threats, the fear for their safety, and the fear of sudden, career-killing failure. What also lay ahead was a fandom that showed up and became more passionate and fiercely loyal than ever. At their first concert back in the U.S. following the anti-war comment, the Chicks were met with deafening cheers and a standing ovation. A feeling of joy and relief spread across the band’s faces as Maines bellowed to the audience, “They said you might not come, but we knew you’d come!”
Their loyal fans represented those who stand up and cheer for strong women who speak their minds, and that was heartening. But the hatred the band had seen and experienced could not be erased. It can never be canceled out. And so it is in America this week for those who oppose Trump. We fear a Trump Presidency but we also fear the Trump voters, all 59 million of them. The fact that they are not the majority, the fact that Hillary won the popular vote, is not a consolation, particularly when so many dejected liberals are, with another twist of the misogynistic knife, blaming Hillary for her loss. We still feel the hatred. We still feel the racism and the bigotry. And we still feel the misogyny.
So how do we move forward?
“I’ve Paid A Price, And I’ll Keep Paying.” — Not Ready to Make Nice, Dixie Chicks
In the Dixie Chicks’ hit, “Goodbye, Earl,” a woman named Wanda finds that the system will not let her win. When her husband starts abusing her shortly after their wedding, she tries to hide it. When she gathers the strength to leave him, he violates her restraining order and beats her to within an inch of her life. Wanda followed the rules. She went through the system. And the system did not work for her. So what did she and her best friend Mary Anne decide? C’mon, you know the song: Earl had to die! They poisoned him, they dumped him in the lake, and the world was a better place for it. Then they found economic independence as entrepreneurs. It is a happy song; the women prevail because they said, “Fuck the system.”
And so it was for the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks were generally credited with bringing a wider audience to country music and to bluegrass specifically. They did not leave country to go mainstream, as many artists do — they brought mainstream audiences over to country. And then the system turned on them. They watched as something they grew up with and something they had done so much for — country radio — abandoned them in a heartbeat when listeners called in demanding that program managers take the Chicks out of rotation. “I could probably put Marilyn Manson on the station and not get that reaction,” says a country DJ in Shut Up and Sing.
The band’s manager, Simon Renshaw, pointed out the hypocrisy and misogyny of country radio, saying, “They’ll give Tracy Lawrence, who’s a wife beater, another shot,” but not the Dixie Chicks. “I don’t want another shot!” Maines replied without hesitation. Instead the Chicks decided to give the finger right back to country radio. “Now that we’ve fucked ourselves anyway I think we have a responsibility to keep fucking ourselves,” Maines said at the time.
Without having to answer to radio, they could be and say whatever they wanted. They went on television and stood by their beliefs. When country’s patriotic poster boy Toby Keith played his hostile pro-war song at concerts, displaying a photo-shopped photo of Maines and Saddam Hussein as lovers, Maines (and many Dixie Chicks fans) started wearing F.U.T.K. shirts to their shows. A year later, the Chicks signed on as part of the 2004 Vote for Change nationwide tour, joining dozens of politically active (mostly male and mostly white) acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam.
The freedom the Dixie Chicks felt at no longer being beholden to a system that rejected them allowed them to double down on their political rhetoric. Chicks’ fiddle player and co-founder Martie Maguire said, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was the best thing that ever happened to our career! We’d never change it.” Emily Strayer, the band’s co-founder and banjo player, expressed how thankful they became about the incident: “It’s given us this fire back… There’s just something to say for having that back.”
Maybe with time we — and Hillary — might be able to say the same thing about this election. She was one of the most qualified nominees to ever seek the office of the presidency, but even she could not win. The system failed her. Hillary was called a “nasty woman” at the third presidential debate for daring to say something true about Trump’s intentions toward changing Social Security. Now that she is free, she should up the ante just like the Dixie Chicks did. She has already been tried and convicted, now she should BE that nasty woman. We all should be.
“Sing Me Something Brave From Your Mouth.” — Truth №2, Dixie Chicks
The rebel spirit and innate feminism of the Dixie Chicks had always been there, under the surface, long before country audiences decided to punish them for it. Prior to the 2003 flap, it was evident throughout their first three albums. They did not shy away from the topic of domestic abuse (“Goodbye, Earl,” “Truth №2”) and they were comfortable recording songs in which Maines sang from a male point of view (“Top of the World,” “Long Time Gone”). They challenged the patriarchal narrative wherein women seek commitment and validation from a man (“Some Days You Gotta Dance,” “Ready to Run,” “Sin Wagon”). They covered songs by other celebrated, multi-dimensional female songwriters (Patty Griffin, Stevie Nicks).
Another consistent theme throughout their discography is that of leaving home and paving one’s own way. One of their early hits, the title track from their first album, was “Wide Open Spaces,” about a young girl leaving her hometown in search of “room to make her big mistakes.” Leaving home was also framed as a positive in the case of “Goodbye, Earl,” where Mary Anne escapes the fate of a violent husband because she chose to go out “looking for a bright new world” after graduation. However, in “Wide Open Spaces” as well as in “Long Time Gone,” though the search for new experiences and the questioning of a certain way of life are glorified, in classic narrative style the protagonist returns home in the end, cycling back to their humble beginnings.
Fast forward to 2006, three years after Maines’ anti-war comments. The Dixie Chicks release their first album since the controversy, entitled Taking the Long Way. More fearless than ever, they had written or co-written every track on the record and pulled exactly zero punches. For instance, they revisit the theme of leaving one’s hometown for a new world, but in a much more straightforward way. Now the journey is framed more as a rejection of close-mindedness and insulation, and there is absolutely no returning to where they are from. In “The Long Way Around,” Maines sings, “My friends from high school married their high school boyfriends. Moved into houses in the same zip codes where their parents lived. But I, I could never follow.” In “Lubbock or Leave It,” Maines calls out the hypocrisy of her hometown, a place she says “couldn’t keep me on my knees.” Describing it as hell’s half acre, she declares she’ll never return to “this fool’s paradise.”
The Chicks’ willingness to specifically and purposefully call a spade a spade on Taking the Long Way comes to mind as we are inundated with mainstream media journalists telling us how Trump is our punishment for ignoring the plight of the working class in flyover states. The Dixie Chicks decided to do away with the notion that as liberals — and further, as “empathic” women — we are supposed to celebrate and embrace difference at any cost, and instead draw a line when the difference of opinion balances on acceptance versus prejudice. One is simply wrong. The Chicks began pointing out what Patrick Thornton echoed in his recent piece in Roll Call, that the coasts and the big cities are not the bubble — rural America is.
Another way to think of that stance and its applicability to this election is how Lena Dunham described it in Lenny Letter: “It should not be the job of women, of people of color, of queer and trans Americans, to understand who does not consider them human and why, just as it is not the job of the abused to understand their abuser.” The Dixie Chicks stopped trying to relate to those who hated them for being both political and female at the same time. That’s a lesson worth emulating.
And for the women who are devastated at Hillary’s loss and the thought that it may be another generation before we see a woman president, it is one of many points of inspiration we can glean from the Dixie Chicks’ career in how to navigate the next four years. It will be exhausting, being a nasty woman all the time and letting everyone know it. Calling everyone out for the way they constantly undervalue women, people of color, and those with any kind of difference. But four years is better than eight. Democrats need a majority in Congress in 2020 if they are going to correct the gerrymandering perpetrated by the Republicans in 2010, ever so slightly correcting the system that let us down.
“I Don’t Think That I’m Afraid Anymore, Say That I Would Rather Die Trying” — Truth №2, Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks released Taking the Long Way in 2006 and it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. It earned them five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Album. Selling over 2.5 million copies, the RIAA certified it Double Platinum. It also debuted at number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Albums. In Shut Up and Sing, a country DJ notes that the Dixie Chicks “got a number one selling album and didn’t have to depend on radio to do it.”
Women find themselves in the same boat now in terms of whom we can and cannot depend on. Women cannot rely on Democrats to represent us and we cannot rely on the system to work for us. We cannot relent and we cannot tone it down in the face of a culture that hates women and does not know it. We have to be louder and we have to call it out.
When the Dixie Chicks announced a world tour for 2016, they had not released an album in nearly a decade and they had not played a show in six years. Again, they thought the fans might not come, but the fans did, more impassioned and diverse than ever. As one might expect, the Chicks put on a show that was completely on their terms, playing covers by Prince, Beyoncé, Ben Harper, Bob Dylan, and Motörhead, right along with their own hits.
Having gotten wind of the Chicks’ covering her song, “Daddy Lessons,” Beyoncé suggested recording a collaboration together, which they performed to a surprised audience at the Country Music Awards on November 2. Some fans questioned the Dixie Chicks performing for an industry that rejected them. On Twitter, Maines replied, “We were in Bey’s world not the CMA world.” To hear the New York Times tell it, it was the other way around: Beyoncé chose to partner with the most politically-persecuted act country music has ever seen, and she chose to do it live and in person at their biggest event of the year. The exuberance on that stage represented one of the most beautiful ‘fuck you’s to a misogynist culture one could imagine.
Beyoncé entered the Dixie Chicks’ world on November 2. The rest of us entered it on November 8. We need to start navigating our misogynistic country the way the Dixie Chicks have since 2003. Now was not our time, and that is crushing. Turns out we are taking the long way, too.
