Try That In A Big Town

This week’s object of outrage is a song by a country singer in which he warns us city slickers to stay out of small towns or those “good ol’ boys” are gonna whup our asses.

To listen to this guy, you’d think that there’s been an epidemic of grandmas getting car jacked. Liquor Stores being robbed. Flags being burned. Cops being disrespected.

That shit might be OK in the Big City, he implies, but if you bring it around here you might get an unpleasant surprise.

(BTW, if you try to rob a liquor store here in Barstow, the rednecks won’t come to the rescue. They won’t have time. The owner usually has a handy little shotgun under the counter.)

Most folks ignored the song. Then the video was released. There were images of riots and people confronting cops and lots and lots of black people. So who was he singing the song to? Or about?

The country singer, whom I will not name, said no, this is just about everyone looking out for one another. He said nothing about the images on the video.

Listen, you can say and sing whatever you damned well want to. But when people call you on your bullshit, that’s not “cancel culture,” it’s freedom of speech.

(Have you ever noticed when freedom of speech points out stuff the right wing doesn’t like, it’s suddenly labeled “censorship?” Let’s have a Bud Light and talk about it.)

I have listened to the song, which isn’t very good lyrically and rather pedestrian musically. Personally, I prefer “Oakie From Muskogee” for my bellicose Southern anthems.

But let’s talk about the problems with this song.

First of all, it creates what we call “straw men.” In other words, it creates horrible behavior which actually never quite happens in small towns. Grandmas are not habitually carjacked in Small Town, USA. Nobody’s burned a flag on Main Street for decades. But the song brings this stuff up just to piss you off.

Second, some of the behavior rejected in the song is often celebrated in Right Wing Culture. Disrespect a cop and spit in his face? Were you watching on January 6, 2021 when the capitol was attacked? Those folks that this country singer would probably call “Patriots” were beating cops with metal pipes and grabbing at their guns. Wonder why you didn’t mention that little tidbit, buddy?

Then there’s that line about the gun his granddad gave him and that “they” are coming to take it away from him soon. Mon frer, no one is coming for your hunting rifle. Or your pistol. Or your shotgun.

Your AR-15 that can shred the body of a small child in an elementary school, yeah, there are some of us who think that kind of weaponry is best kept with the military, the men and women who are trained to use them.

My beef with the song is that it’s another in a long line of Country songs whose message is, essentially, “I’m a redneck and I’m better than you in every way.” The one sure way to get a Country hit these days is to tell your listeners that the redneck way of life is in every way superior to those pansies in the City.

Now, I know rednecks. I love some of them. I like a lot of them. Drank beer with a lot of them. Served in the Air Force with them. They have their charms and their virtues. But they’re no better–or worse–than me.

Still, imagine a song that said “I’m from the Big City and I’m here to kick your redneck ass.” Yeah, there’d be an outcry from the Right.

But you know what the biggest beef I have with this song and others like it? The cowardice.

The singer will tell you that you can read the lyrics and not see racism. And it’s true. The lyrics are just mealy-mouthed enough that you can’t point to one word and say “that’s racist.” Yet I’ll bet you every white boy sitting in a bar throughout the South knows exactly what this guy is saying. Carjacking? Holding Up liquor stores? Disrespecting Cops? When they make movies with this kind of bull, what color are the actors, usually?

But no, these songwriters (BTW, the singer did not write the song) threw in their dog whistles and then backed off so they could put on an innocent expression and say, “Racist? Me?”

They are cowards. They write a song to stir up their buddies in the bars against the libs and the blacks and the Others, then they back off when they’re called on it.

Merle Haggard, on the other hand, often said he wrote “Oakie From Muskogee” because he was proud of his town and its conservative values. He pulled no punches. He told it like it was.

And you know what? Even the hippies liked it.