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Speaker 1: Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Rivals, the show about musical deeps and

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Speaker 1: feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve, ma'am

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Speaker 1: Jordan's and in this episode we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: some hot button issues like War nine eleven and early

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Speaker 1: adds pop country really running the whole gamut here. I

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Speaker 1: hope this episode isn't too controversial for our listeners. Jordan's. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope. Uh this this might be the most controversial

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Speaker 1: one this side of the side of beer from my horses. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you really don't want to give beer to your horses.

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Speaker 1: I feel like that should even be a controversy. I

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Speaker 1: think that's pretty clear cut. Yeah, there should be a

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Speaker 1: pea ad for that. Yeah, we're talking about Toby Keith

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Speaker 1: versus the Dixie Chicks. This was something that it just

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Speaker 1: raged in the culture in the early two thousands, which

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Speaker 1: is a really strange time. You know, like when whenever

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Speaker 1: people talking about like how like the Trump years are

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Speaker 1: really crazy, I feel like we don't remember just how

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Speaker 1: insane the early two thousands were. The Freedom Fries era.

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Speaker 1: That's the Freedom Fries era. We're talking about here. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: freedom fries and all sorts of stuff, and this story, uh,

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Speaker 1: I think really epitomize. It's just how people lost their

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Speaker 1: damn minds for a while in the early odds for

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Speaker 1: a really minor thing, Like it's shocking the look back

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Speaker 1: at what was actually said from advantage point of fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: almost twenty years and see the completely disproportionate reaction. It's

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Speaker 1: it's absolutely insane. I mean you've got people like uh,

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Speaker 1: Kathy um, Cathy Griffin, Yes, Kethy Griffin holding up trump

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Speaker 1: severed head and that's like the line now but very crazy. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's get into this mess all right. Now, this all started,

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Speaker 1: like so many of life's pleasantries, with Toby Keith song

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Speaker 1: courtesy of the Red, White and Blue PARENTHESI is the

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Speaker 1: Angry American In case you forgot, that's the one that

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Speaker 1: features the line you'll be sorry you messed with the

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Speaker 1: US of A because we'll put a boot in your ass.

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Speaker 1: It's the American way, classic classic song, classic songwriting. I

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Speaker 1: can't argue with that, you know, putting boots in people's

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Speaker 1: asses is the American way. I mean it is. He's

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Speaker 1: got a point there, Toby Keith of course, wrote that

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Speaker 1: song apparently in twenty minutes on the back of a

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Speaker 1: fantasy football sheet. I'm told, and really, did you know that?

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Speaker 1: I didn't know about the fantasy football part. I knew

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Speaker 1: it took twenty minutes. I always feel like, uh, I

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Speaker 1: wonder if it actually took like three minutes and then

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Speaker 1: he took like a seventeen minute that that'd be my guess,

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Speaker 1: because I don't think you need you only need twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes to write that. It seems like you could have

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Speaker 1: knocked that out in a couple of minutes. But what

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Speaker 1: else could we put in someone's ass? All right? A boot? No, okay,

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Speaker 1: we could do kicks. No, that doesn't feels good. I'll

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Speaker 1: go well, we'll stick with boot. We'll just stick with boot.

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Speaker 1: It works, it works, It's poetic, right, And this was

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Speaker 1: one of the sort of many hypernationalistic, hyper aggressive country

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Speaker 1: songs that were released in the wake of nine eleven,

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Speaker 1: and they all had names like you know I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: drop kick Saddam who says Mama across the Astrodome for Jesus,

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Speaker 1: like these songs that are really sort of deeply uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: to hear now, but at the time we were mourning

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Speaker 1: the death of three thousand people in the most shocking

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Speaker 1: way we've ever experienced. We're trying to process these feelings

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Speaker 1: of grief and anger, and it came out in music

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Speaker 1: like Toby Ky song, which is a sentiment that a

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Speaker 1: lot of people agree with at the time. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you remember this song. There was a

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Speaker 1: song called have You Forgotten by Darryl Whirley. He was

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Speaker 1: another country singer, and in that song he rhymes the

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Speaker 1: word forgotten with bin laden and that always sticks out

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Speaker 1: to me as being very indicative of that time. But

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Speaker 1: you know, even like someone like Neil Young wrote a

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Speaker 1: nine eleven song called Let's Roll was named after Todd Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: the guy in the United ninety three, you know, said

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Speaker 1: that before going after the terrorists and the plane going down.

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Speaker 1: Neil Young wrote that song. It's like, Neil, did you

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Speaker 1: have to get into the nine eleven song business? I

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Speaker 1: wish you had a set that one out, But you know,

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Speaker 1: fortunately no one remembers that song except me and now

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Speaker 1: banging it up in a podcast. I'm sure Neil would

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Speaker 1: appreciate me talking about Let's Roll. Yeah, that definitely just

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Speaker 1: cost us a good like year eighteen months and a

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Speaker 1: potential CSNY reunion, And like with the Toby Key song,

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Speaker 1: I guess he wrote that for his decks. His dad

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Speaker 1: was was a veteran, and he wanted to make his

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Speaker 1: dad proud, right he he had just died. The song

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Speaker 1: has actually a lot more of a personal meaning to

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Speaker 1: Toby then. I think a lot of people realize, like

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Speaker 1: he said, it was written for his dad. It was

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Speaker 1: a vet and a lifelong democrat actually, and he had

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Speaker 1: just died, I think just before nine eleven, I think,

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Speaker 1: and he was basically thinking about what his dad would

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Speaker 1: would think of all this um And at first Toby

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Speaker 1: didn't want to record it. He thought it was too personal.

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Speaker 1: And he performed it at the Pentagon in front of

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Speaker 1: a platoon of Marines that were shipping out to Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: and a Marine Corps General, James Jones heard it and

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Speaker 1: loved it and begged him to record it. He says

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Speaker 1: it's the most amazing battle song that he ever heard

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Speaker 1: in his life. So that was really the reason why

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Speaker 1: it got recorded. He was drafted, basically, he was drafted

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Speaker 1: by the American government to to record this jingoistic song,

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Speaker 1: and he had no choice. So he did it, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I already feel like I'm gonna be in

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Speaker 1: the position of having to defend Toby Keith in this episode.

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Speaker 1: And it's a very odd position to be in because

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Speaker 1: I'm not normally one to defend Toby Keith. But in

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Speaker 1: the interest of context, the interests of fairness, I think

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Speaker 1: it's worth pointing out, like what his career was like

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Speaker 1: before this song, because he wasn't like some right wing,

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Speaker 1: redneck conservative guy. He was basically just like this goofy

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Speaker 1: country singer. Like the Visa of the Angry American is

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Speaker 1: a song called Who's Your Daddy? You know, which I

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Speaker 1: feel like it's more indicative of like what Toby Keats

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Speaker 1: output was before that. Like his first hit song was

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Speaker 1: back in ninety three. It was a song called should

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Speaker 1: Have Been a Cowboy, was the number one hit on

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Speaker 1: the country. It's this pretty good song. But like his

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Speaker 1: big hits from the nineties were songs like how do

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Speaker 1: You Like Me Now? And I Want to Talk About Me?

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Speaker 1: These sort of like happy, go lucky, witty, goofy songs.

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Speaker 1: You know that you put on in your truck and

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Speaker 1: you roll down the windows and you sing along and

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Speaker 1: there's not a lot of thought to it. I just

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Speaker 1: feel like he wasn't really an ideologue. You know, he

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Speaker 1: wasn't someone that I think it was an intellectual person

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Speaker 1: who was like reading US News and World Report and

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Speaker 1: thinking about geopolitical issues. You know. He was a goofy

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Speaker 1: country singer. But then he wrote this song that just

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Speaker 1: took off and it really captured the zeitgeist right and

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Speaker 1: again it came more from his feelings about his father

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Speaker 1: have been about you know, reading ripped from the headlines

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. But the song, just because of its

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Speaker 1: coarse message of putting boots in other people's asses, got

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Speaker 1: under people's skin. Peter Jennings, the ABC newscaster, Uh, they

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Speaker 1: were gonna have Toby Keith on and he basically asked

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Speaker 1: him to either tweak the lyrics or pick a different

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Speaker 1: song and perform. And Toby ended up refusing to appear

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Speaker 1: on the show. And I guess his fans sent hundreds

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Speaker 1: of boots to ABC headquarters, which is amazing. It's pretty funny.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta say it's really funny here Jennings. He's

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Speaker 1: a Canadian Manadian. He has no saying this. He has

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Speaker 1: no saying this. Love it or leave it, dude, literal

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Speaker 1: leave a dude. You can have some maple syrup up

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Speaker 1: in Canada, dude, if you don't like boots and asses. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the many people who didn't care for the

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Speaker 1: song was Nadlie Man's of the Dixie Chicks, and she

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Speaker 1: was very critical of the song, and she gave an

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Speaker 1: interview where she said, I hate it. It's ignorant, and

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Speaker 1: it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire

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Speaker 1: culture and not just the bad people who did bad things.

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Speaker 1: You've got to have some tact. Anybody can write We'll

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Speaker 1: put a boot in your ass, But a lot of

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Speaker 1: people agree with it, and and and just to put

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Speaker 1: this in the context too, because you know, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about Toby Keith being this pop country male star who

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Speaker 1: was writing I guess party anthems, you know in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: you know, feel good type music. And with Natalie Mains

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Speaker 1: talking about this, I mean the Dixie Chicks, I feel

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Speaker 1: like we don't really understand like how huge this group

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Speaker 1: was for about a three or four years span in America.

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Speaker 1: I mean they were one of the biggest bands in

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Speaker 1: American history for about a few years, like in the

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Speaker 1: late nineties and early two thousand's, like, they put out

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Speaker 1: a record in called Wide Open Spaces that sells thirteen

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Speaker 1: million records. Jesus wow. Yeah. A few years later they

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Speaker 1: put out Fly, which sells eleven million records, and then

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Speaker 1: their third record, Home, which ended up being the album

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Speaker 1: that coincided with the controversy that occurred with Toby Keith

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Speaker 1: and and Natalie Means subsequent comments in London that only

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Speaker 1: sold six million records, which is still a lot of records,

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Speaker 1: but significantly significant, significantly fewer than the first two. But

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Speaker 1: if you add all that up, that's thirty million records

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Speaker 1: over the course of three albums. I think they're one of,

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Speaker 1: if not the best selling female group of all time, right,

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Speaker 1: if not the number one, like number two or three.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard. I'm hard pressed, just off the

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Speaker 1: top of my head to think of a female group

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Speaker 1: that would so as many as that, unless you're unless

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Speaker 1: maybe Destiny's Child would be like in the conversation, you know,

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Speaker 1: but like but but I'm not even sure if Destiny's

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Speaker 1: Child had like multiple albums that were like diamond sellers,

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Speaker 1: you know, the way the Dixie Chicks were, and you know,

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Speaker 1: they really were a group that was coming at country

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Speaker 1: music from more of a traditionalist standpoint. You know, like

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Speaker 1: this was the era of Shania Twain in arena pop country,

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Speaker 1: you know, where she's jumping around and there's like pyrotechnics everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and you have Garth Brooks as well, swinging around on

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Speaker 1: bungee cords and basically having a kiss concert every night

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Speaker 1: with the headset Mike and mixtion. Chicks are coming on

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Speaker 1: and they're playing fiddles and banjo's and acoustic guitars and

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Speaker 1: they're still writing great pop songs or or they're performing

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Speaker 1: great pop songs but doing it with this traditional country instrumentation,

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Speaker 1: and it's really going over in a big way. So

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Speaker 1: Bernalie mains to speak out against Toby Keith. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this really is like Godzilla and King Kong going head

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Speaker 1: to head and country music. I mean to just enormous stars.

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Speaker 1: These are twin country titans. And her dad did you

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Speaker 1: know her dad was a Lloyd Main's was a huge deal.

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Speaker 1: It was. He was inducted into the Austin Music Hall

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Speaker 1: of Fame initial class with Willie Nelson and Steve Ravon

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Speaker 1: and him where the inductory class of the Austin Hall

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Speaker 1: of Fame. He was a session musician. I think so

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Speaker 1: she comes from serious music stock. Wow, that's what I

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Speaker 1: call it, Jordan rontal factoid of like serious research. My friend,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that, that's what I do. Thank you

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Speaker 1: for doing that. So we have this thing where Toby

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Speaker 1: writes the Angry American putting boots and asses, and Natalie

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Speaker 1: Mains is like, it takes no talent to write a

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Speaker 1: song about putting a boot in the ass. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like Toby Keith just said, oh, that's cool. I

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Speaker 1: don't have a problem with that. Right. Is that how

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Speaker 1: it unfolded? Like it just ended right there? No? No,

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Speaker 1: he kind of went nuclear. Um. He had some pretty

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Speaker 1: choice words. A little later that year in two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: speaking I think was CMT dot com, he said, basically,

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Speaker 1: you asking me about Natalie Mains is like asking Barry

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Speaker 1: Bonds what he thought about a softball player what a

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Speaker 1: softball player said about his swing. That's not true. That's

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Speaker 1: not true, Toby. It gets worse. She's a she's not

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Speaker 1: a songwriter, so we can't discuss the mechanics of the song.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you just go down on Second Avenue and

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Speaker 1: pick one of those homeless guys, and ask him what

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Speaker 1: he thinks about it. To me, it's the same, what

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Speaker 1: a second avenue, The second avenue like a haven of homelessness?

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Speaker 1: And I don't know that, Yeah, that part I don't know.

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Speaker 1: But but he goes on to say he's sounded like

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Speaker 1: lou Reid there, though it's very specific reference there to

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Speaker 1: urban urban Blaite, the lost verse of Walk on the

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Speaker 1: wild Side. He says, I am a songwriter. She's not,

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Speaker 1: and so she can say my song is ignorant. But

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Speaker 1: it's ignorant for her to say that because she's not

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Speaker 1: a songwriter. She said anybody could write Boots in your Ass,

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Speaker 1: but she didn't, which is the argument that a lot

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Speaker 1: of modern artists have for you know, my kid could

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Speaker 1: paint that. Well, yeah, they didn't. She's never written anything

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Speaker 1: that's been a hit, he goes on, So it's ridiculous

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Speaker 1: for me to have to respond to that. And then

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Speaker 1: finally he goes full Nikita kru Chef. Here you can

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Speaker 1: almost picture and banging a shoe on the table. I'll

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Speaker 1: bury her. He says, she has never written anything that

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Speaker 1: has been a hit, and he should have said, how

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Speaker 1: do you you know what he should have said. He

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Speaker 1: should he should have said, how do you like me? Now?

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Speaker 1: That would have been like, that would have been, that

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Speaker 1: would have completed that perfect quote. Or maybe maybe I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna put my boot in her ass also would have

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Speaker 1: worked too. Yeah, maybe that I'm just saying, like, make

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Speaker 1: a do the callback to an earlier hit, you know,

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Speaker 1: just because you're marketing yourself. You know what's interesting to

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Speaker 1: me about this because as you know, as we'll get

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Speaker 1: into in this episode, I mean, this conflict is ultimately

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Speaker 1: defined by political differences. You know, essentially there were people

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Speaker 1: on the right that were associating themselves with Toby Keith

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Speaker 1: and people on the left were embracing the Dixie Chicks.

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Speaker 1: But if you look at the beginning of this rivalry,

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Speaker 1: it's really about musical differences. Like Toby Keith is taking

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Speaker 1: exception to Natalie Means this criticism of his song on

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Speaker 1: these sort of authenticity grounds, you know, this idea of like,

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Speaker 1: I'm a songwriter and you're not, so you have no

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Speaker 1: right to attack me, whereas Natalie Mains is coming at

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Speaker 1: it from this idea of of, you know, country music

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be about this. Country music should be more enlightened

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Speaker 1: than this. Country music should be more progressive than this,

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Speaker 1: and this guy is like a knuckle dragger and he's

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Speaker 1: representing like the worst elements of this kind of music.

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Speaker 1: So oh, I really see this like a musical conflict

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Speaker 1: with these two that, as we'll see, takes on like

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Speaker 1: a much broader political significance as we move forward. It

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Speaker 1: does get messy and also interesting to note that Toby

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Speaker 1: Keith up until I think two thousand eight was registered

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Speaker 1: as a Democrat, right, and he later on he and

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Speaker 1: this will have more significance later he said that he

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Speaker 1: was always against the war privately, which is I mean,

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Speaker 1: obviously something that's easy to say after the fact. But

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Speaker 1: if that's true, that's very interesting that You're right, it

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Speaker 1: really is just um musical differences. Well, and you know,

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Speaker 1: if you remember that Toby Keith is not an ideologue,

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Speaker 1: but he's just like a meathead who's writing fun songs

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Speaker 1: or songs from his gut. The angry American, I think

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Speaker 1: maybe makes a little bit more sense as like an

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Speaker 1: expression of a guy who's watching the news and it's

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Speaker 1: just getting mad about this thing that's happened to the country,

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Speaker 1: which I think a lot of people probably felt at

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Speaker 1: that time. That's why that song was popular. And it's

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Speaker 1: one thing to say like I want to put a

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Speaker 1: boot in your ass and then just say like I

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Speaker 1: actually want to send true and risk their lives, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a matter of policy. You know, like if we're

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Speaker 1: gonna take a sophisticated view of that song, that would

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Speaker 1: be I guess my defense of that song. He's writing

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Speaker 1: about the emotions of the time, and then Natalie Man's

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Speaker 1: objecting to the actual political implications of that emotion. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I think that's a really it's a smart way to

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Speaker 1: put it. And she's also saying like, I even if

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Speaker 1: it is an emotional expression, it's still stupid. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: are and you are a person who has some influence

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Speaker 1: and has a platform. Maybe you can use your platform

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Speaker 1: for something smarter than this. Uh. And then Toby keep

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Speaker 1: to that basically says I will bury, which I like

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Speaker 1: how you compared to the Kita Khrushchev. It actually makes

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Speaker 1: me think of like Dolph Lundering in like rock before,

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Speaker 1: you know, like another great Russian leader. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: like that kind of thing, like I must break you,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But I mean, but this is

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Speaker 1: really just table setting for like what ends up being

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Speaker 1: the big thing that happens with the Dixie Chicks at

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Speaker 1: this time. They are using their platform, as you said,

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Speaker 1: to try to make a point. They're performing in London, Uh,

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Speaker 1: nine days before the American invasion of Iraq in March

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Speaker 1: of two thousand three. Um. I think the day before

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Speaker 1: about one million people demonstrated in London against the impending war.

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Speaker 1: The Dixie Chicks are on stage about to perform Traveling Soldier,

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Speaker 1: great song about a g I who writes love letters

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Speaker 1: to a girl he met just before he leaves to

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Speaker 1: go fight in Vietnam. Uh. He dies in Vietnam. It's

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Speaker 1: a sort of the flip side of the Angry American.

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Speaker 1: This is sort of the This underscores the human cost

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Speaker 1: of putting a boot in someone's ass, if you will.

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Speaker 1: And it's important to note too that this song was

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Speaker 1: a number one hit on the country charts as well,

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Speaker 1: and the same way that the Angry American was, so

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Speaker 1: people were also seeking out more nuanced songs to sing

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Speaker 1: both sides. Although this would prove to be the last

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Speaker 1: number one hit for the Dixie Chicks, they would never

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Speaker 1: get even close to having a number one hit on

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Speaker 1: the country charts after again having this huge drun. Let

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Speaker 1: it last at about five years really where they really

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Speaker 1: were like the Taylor Swift of their time. So just

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Speaker 1: imagine you have Taylor Swift dominating the world, and now

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Speaker 1: we're soon gonna have a situation where Taylor Swift is

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Speaker 1: like extinguished practically overnight, which is just crazy to think about,

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Speaker 1: but that's essentially what happens. Oh, it's insane, all right, hand,

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more rivals. Natalie Mainz is

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Speaker 1: on stage in Law and then she tells the crowd

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Speaker 1: just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all.

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Speaker 1: We do not want this war, this violence, and we're

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Speaker 1: ashamed at the president of the United States is from

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Speaker 1: Texas talking about George W. Bush. Almost immediately this statement

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Speaker 1: proves explosive in the country music world and in the

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Speaker 1: world at large, and somehow the fact that it's on

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Speaker 1: foreign soil seems to make it even more reprehensible and

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Speaker 1: traitorous to some people back in America. And this was

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Speaker 1: this was the pre social media age and pre YouTube.

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Speaker 1: So it actually began with a British review in The

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Speaker 1: Guardian which cut out the stuff about being anti war

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Speaker 1: and anti violence, and so the only statement that was

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Speaker 1: printed was they were ashamed at the President United States

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Speaker 1: is from Texas, which I mean the context softened it

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Speaker 1: a bit. And basically it's just DJ's faxing each other

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Speaker 1: like the story and like really turning it into like

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Speaker 1: a thing, like whipping the audience up about it. And

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Speaker 1: I feel like maybe the precursor to this is like

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Speaker 1: in the sixties when John Lennon said that the Beatles

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Speaker 1: were bigger than Jesus, and DJ's in America took that

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Speaker 1: comment and ran with it, and then they were encouraging

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Speaker 1: people to like bulldoze their Beatles records and burned their

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Speaker 1: Beatles records, and you had like the Ku koos Klan

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Speaker 1: threatening to like assassinate the Beatles like on the road, uh,

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Speaker 1: for their tour in nineteen sixty six. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: seems like, weirdly the precursor to like what was happening

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Speaker 1: here with the Dixie Chicks were It's almost like DJ's

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Speaker 1: using this as a publicity stunt to build their own

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Speaker 1: names and to take the Dixie Chicks down at this point,

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Speaker 1: taking this comment, which I think is fairly innocuous, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, like the foreign soil thing always

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Speaker 1: makes me laugh. Like when people talk about this is

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Speaker 1: on foreign soil, you know that you said this as

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Speaker 1: if she was like in Afghanistan performing for the Taliban

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Speaker 1: and burning in American flag. Guess saying this, It's like

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Speaker 1: she's in England, you know, performing for Dixie Chicks fans.

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Speaker 1: It's like, why does that make it worse than if

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Speaker 1: she were in America saying this? It's just a silly

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Speaker 1: way to like justify censoring her. I mean it seems

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Speaker 1: like a pretty you know, transparent uh thing there. You know,

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Speaker 1: like this rhetorical idea that somehow it's worse if you're

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Speaker 1: in a different country and you're criticizing the president then

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Speaker 1: if you're in America. I mean, it's so crazy, especially

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Speaker 1: in the area of Trump now, to look back on

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Speaker 1: on how benign it all kind of seems. But but people,

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Speaker 1: I don't think it was just DJs. I was reading

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Speaker 1: about how DJs will get called up for people who

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Speaker 1: would give them death threats and rape threats, and I

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Speaker 1: mean I think I was actually sort of a grassroots

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Speaker 1: thing too, from from people especially in Texas, and instantly,

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Speaker 1: I think in one week they're single At the time,

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Speaker 1: Landslide plummeted from number ten to number forty three on

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Speaker 1: the Hot one hundred and then was gone after that,

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Speaker 1: and the the implications were big. The band lost their

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Speaker 1: promotional deals with Lipton, which is okay, and Red Cross.

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Speaker 1: The Red Cross denied them a million dollar endorsement because

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Speaker 1: they feared the ire of the boycott. I think, like, okay,

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Speaker 1: like when when the Red Cross pulls an endorsement. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: even like the Red Cross is saying like, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't want you. You went on Foreign Soil and

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Speaker 1: you said bad things about George Bush. We can't associate

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Speaker 1: with you. Blood drives. Yeah. Yeah. There were people like

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Speaker 1: vandalizing like their houses, and I like you said, all

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Speaker 1: the death threats and like rape threats, just all this despicable,

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Speaker 1: just garbage that was being hurled at them. And again

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Speaker 1: it was more than DJs. But I do feel like

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Speaker 1: there were people in the industry that were whipping people

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Speaker 1: up and encouraging this this type of behavior, you know,

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Speaker 1: and it was from the country music establishment. You know.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't anyone saying out there, hey, I mean there

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Speaker 1: were very few people saying, hey, they have a right

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Speaker 1: to say this, we you may not agree with it,

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Speaker 1: but we're not going to kill their career over this.

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Speaker 1: It's like one statement, it's relatively benign. There were no

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Speaker 1: calming voices. It was as if the Dixie Chicks became

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Speaker 1: this focal point for people to like let out their

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Speaker 1: anxiety or let out their anger, or it was an

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Speaker 1: excuse to show how patriotic you could be by like

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Speaker 1: putting the Dixie Chicks in their place, and and and

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Speaker 1: just the idea that like you could really just kill

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Speaker 1: someone's career as swiftly as country radio and the country

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Speaker 1: music establishment was doing to the Dixie Chicks. It's it's

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Speaker 1: really hard to conceive of now. I feel like now

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Speaker 1: we have things like social media, where Dixie Chick supporters

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Speaker 1: would have had more of a voice, you know, or

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Speaker 1: just you know, you know what I mean, Like, you

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Speaker 1: feel like there'd be more more of an equitable sharing

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Speaker 1: of opinions about this, But it just seems like people

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Speaker 1: are in lockstep against them at this time. Well, you

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Speaker 1: think that in the era of cancel culture, we would

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Speaker 1: be able to conceive of this kind of just backlash,

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Speaker 1: But it really it's huge even by today's standards. I mean,

425
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,200
Speaker 1: it's just absolutely overnight, the biggest country act in the

426
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:27,720
Speaker 1: world is just gone, just for some non grata anywhere. Yeah,

427
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,320
Speaker 1: you mentioned cancel culture, which I feel like a lot

428
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 1: of time is overstated. You know, what cancel culture often

429
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: is in a modern context is someone says something stupid

430
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: and they get excoriated for it for about twenty four

431
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,480
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours, and then the world moves on

432
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: to something else, and maybe that person feels embarrassed or

433
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: aggrieved over that, and you know, it's not easy to

434
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: be put in the barrel like that, But you're not

435
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: being canceled, you know, like eventually people forget about it

436
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: and you move on. But this is truly being canceled. Yeah, exactly.

437
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: Like when the Red Cross is saying we have we

438
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: want nothing to do with you because of this one

439
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 1: thing you said on stage, that really speaks to just

440
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:11,480
Speaker 1: how quickly and how broadly they were affected by this

441
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: um And you know, well, it's true that the Dixie

442
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:16,919
Speaker 1: Chicks weren't canceled. They went on to make out the

443
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: records and they even had great successes after this. It

444
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 1: was never the same. Yeah, when you look at where

445
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 1: they were, it's they they were never going to get

446
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,119
Speaker 1: that Highever, again, you had Bush speaking out against them,

447
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: you had Reba Queen Reba speaking out against them, and

448
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: naturally so did Toby Keith. He saw a good opportunity

449
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: to put the boot in, as it were. Toby has

450
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 1: been laying low this entire time for a little while anyway,

451
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 1: because it's because this is about a year after their

452
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: initial conflict over the Angry American. But now the Dixie

453
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 1: Chicks are down, and Toby Keith could decide to be

454
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 1: a gentleman, or you could decide to kick them when

455
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: they're down, And he decided to kick them when they

456
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: were down in a pretty spectacular way. During his Shock

457
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,880
Speaker 1: and Y'all tour, he uh here, yeah, let's let's let's

458
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 1: savor that for a minute. The Shock and Y'all tour,

459
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: uh he displayed a crudely photographed, excuse me, a crudely

460
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:14,679
Speaker 1: photoshopped picture of Natalie Main's embracing Saddam Hussein as the

461
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 1: backdrop whenever he performed The Angry American. Not incendiary in

462
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: the least, and he defended it. He defended it by

463
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: saying that he thought that Natalie Mains was being tyrannical

464
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: by her sort of dictatorial like attempt to squelch his

465
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: free speech by singing this song. He thought he was

466
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: equating her with Saddam Hussein by her desire to have

467
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: him not sing that song, which I don't buy that

468
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 1: for a second. That he's like such a bullshit excuse.

469
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, I I saw Toby Keith a couple

470
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 1: of times in the odds because I was a reporter

471
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: for a small town newspaper and like Toby Keith is

472
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: like he was like one of the only people that

473
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: would come to the market that I was in, and

474
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: I saw him do things like this in his concerts,

475
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 1: like patriotic sorts of like showmanship, like getting the crowd

476
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: riled up. And he was also touring with Ted Nugent

477
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: at this time. Remember, Yeah, it's like the nude would

478
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: come out and he would shoot an arrow at like

479
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein, like a cardboard cutout of Saddam Hussein, and

480
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: then in the arrow might have been on fire. I

481
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: can't remember, let's just uh. But like when I saw

482
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: that stuff, I felt like, well, this is theater, you know,

483
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: this is like a rena rock theater. This is like

484
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: kiss spitting out blood in front of people, and you know,

485
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,199
Speaker 1: this whole sort of hackneyed explanation that he thought that

486
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: Natalie Mains is being tyrannical and that's why put her

487
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: in a photo of Saddam Hussein. I'm inclined to believe

488
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: that he did that because he knew that people would

489
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,160
Speaker 1: get excited to see that on a screen. He knew

490
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 1: that she wasn't popular with country music fans. And if

491
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: you want to get eighteen thousand people on their feet

492
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: and cheering, that this is an easy, cheap thing to do,

493
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: and that's why you did it. That seems like a

494
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: more accurate, truthful explanation for why you did stuff like

495
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: that to me. Oh yeah, I'm very much inclined to agree.

496
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: But Natalie, she's outspoken, she's not taking this line down.

497
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:17,919
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, she goes to the A C.

498
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 1: M Awards and So wearing a T shirt that says

499
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 1: f U t K What was that mean? The dicks?

500
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: It just publicist claim that these letters stood for freedom

501
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: United Together in Kindness, But of course every other person

502
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: on the planet thought it so for f you, Toby Keith,

503
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: and that was obviously what it really stood for I

504
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: think she later admitted it. Yeah, so that was her

505
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 1: a slightly less aggressive than a than a JumboTron image

506
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: and a international national arena tour, but still message received

507
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: loud and clear. Uh, their feuding And I don't know

508
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: if you know, did you know that there was a

509
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: CMT news special about up this few in an hour

510
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: long TV special in two thousand three? Yeah? I heard

511
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: about this, Yeah, and it was very slanted toward against

512
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: Natalie Mains essentially right. Oh, it's incredible. It's on YouTube.

513
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: It's just like packed with like talking heads verily, very

514
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: soberly saying I was surprised to see her shirt and

515
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: only only Natalie can tell us why she wore it,

516
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: like just these oh yeah that it was really like

517
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: how dare you wear this T shirt? You know with

518
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: letter F on it? Yeah. Meanwhile, Toby Keith is like

519
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: equating you with like a murderous dictator you know, on

520
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 1: arena stages throughout the country, Like what like what's worse?

521
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: Like I think it's pretty clearly the Toby Keith thing.

522
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: But I don't know if you want to like ascribe

523
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: this to like, you know, patriotism at the time or

524
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: just sexism general animus, like you know, against the Dixie Chicks. Old, yeah,

525
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: I mean I think sexism is probably the most accurate,

526
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: uh explanation for this. I mean, like, because there's really

527
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 1: no other way to look at this and say that,

528
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: like him, how her t shirt is worse than like

529
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: what Toby Keith is doing. You know, they're at least

530
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: equally bad. But I think what Toby was doing was

531
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: butchport egregious. Oh yeah, and I mean yeah, because there's

532
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: no way around at least there's some subtlety to what

533
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: Natalie's doing. I mean, there's different ways to read it,

534
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's so it's pretty awful. But the Dixie

535
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,880
Speaker 1: Chicks get some defense from a a fairly unlikely source.

536
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: Moral Haggard country legend, outlaw country legend. He defends the

537
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks. He uh posts an essay to his website

538
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: that's basically criticizing the Dixie Chicks radio band. Uh. He

539
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: says they've cut such an honest groove with their career

540
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: because they don't like George Bush, so we should take

541
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: their records off. I really found that sort of scary.

542
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: Are we afraid of criticism? If so, why it seems

543
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:48,719
Speaker 1: to me we're guilty in this country of doing everything.

544
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: We're always opposed. I've all we've always opposed all my life.

545
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: I'm almost afraid to say something. It got to the

546
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: point where my wife said, be careful what you say. Well,

547
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: that's really not the America I'm used to. Wow, Marl

548
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: Haggard's afraid that's that's that isn't America. You don't want

549
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: to be in right there, He's not afraid of much.

550
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: And I'm not surprised that he would say that. I mean,

551
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: I feel like he came from the generation that you

552
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: know he I mean, he started his career in the sixties.

553
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: He had that song Okay from a Skokie, which came

554
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: out at the height of the Vietnam War and was

555
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: a song that was I think satirizing the red kneck

556
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: culture of the time, but like a lot of people

557
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: didn't realize that because it was such a great song. Yeah,

558
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: it was embraced by the red kneck culture as as

559
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: being anticounter culture, but he was really just making fun

560
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: of them. Was almost like an archie bunker type song.

561
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: And it's said to me that this wasn't the moment

562
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: where Toby Keith and the Dixy Ticks could have come

563
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 1: together because I feel like Merle Haggard is definitely one

564
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: of those people that Toby Keith would have looked at

565
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: and respected, and I think he would have understood the point.

566
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: He totally did. He's a hero, and I think he

567
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: would have understood the point that Merle Haggard was trying

568
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: to make. But it didn't happen. I mean, this just

569
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: went over people's heads, that basically, and it she seems like,

570
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately, real Haggard at that time was not

571
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: the most relevant pop person in terms of country radio,

572
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: so he was someone that was pretty easy to ignore,

573
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: even though he put his own kind of protest song

574
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: at that time. It was called America First, and uh,

575
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: what's the land of that song? He says, let's get

576
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: out of the rack and get back on track, which

577
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: means so, there you go. It's the same it's the

578
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: same thing, right. I Mean, that's a that's at least

579
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: as like explicit as like what Natalie Maine said, you know,

580
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: and he put it in a song. You know, she

581
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: just said that on stage, but she said it on

582
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: Foreign Soil Sour Sticks in your Crawl. Yeah, that's the record.

583
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: That's the recurring theme here, because that is the original sin.

584
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: Here is the foreign soil aspect, the dirt she said,

585
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: on the wrong dirt. The coats all gets back the

586
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: seventy six. We're gonna take a quick break to get

587
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals.

588
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: So there is eventually a detente between Toby Keith and

589
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks occurs. In August two thousand three. Uh, Toby

590
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: Keith basically waves an all a branch, if you could

591
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: call it that, after a band member lost his two

592
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: year old daughter to cancer. Uh. He basically said that

593
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 1: that put the whole fight in perspective. He said he

594
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: saw a picture on the cover of Country Weekly with

595
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: himself and Natalie and the caption said fight to the death,

596
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: and he just said, you know, it all seems so insignificant.

597
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: I said, enough is enough. So he basically said, you

598
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: know what I'm I'm not going to rag on the

599
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks anymore. Later that year, he admitted how embarrassed

600
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,239
Speaker 1: he was by the whole thing and how disappointed he

601
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: was in himself that he stooped to that level. But

602
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: then he also defended himself for having the picture of

603
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: Saddam Husein and Natalie by once again saying that he

604
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: didn't start this fight. Uh, she started it by dissing

605
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: his song and by trying to make him not sing

606
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: that song anymore. It was dictatorial. So really he kind

607
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: of backtracks a bit, but for the most part it's over.

608
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: There are some minor issues later on. Um yeah, I

609
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: mean I think this is a case like it was

610
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: clearly too little, too late for him to say at

611
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: this point that he was embarrassed by what he did.

612
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: You know, after you put you know, if you put so,

613
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: you know, someone's photo with Saddam who's saying and blasted

614
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: on arena screens all across the country. You know, it's

615
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: hard to kind of step back and apologize for it

616
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: after the fact. But I will say it again. I

617
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: feel like I'm like defending Toby Keith here, I'm like

618
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: his defense attorney in this episode. I do feel like

619
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: this is probably closer to like who he actually was.

620
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think that he was a guy

621
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: out to make political points. You know, he wasn't like

622
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: a Fox News talking head, at least not at this point.

623
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: I think he wrote the angry American of an expression

624
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: of like emotion. He coution in his normal sort of

625
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: goofball language, you know, putting a boot in the ass.

626
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: You know, there's not a big leap from that to

627
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: like who's your daddy? Like on the other side of

628
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: the song. It's just sort of a goofy phrase that

629
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: in a way, it's kind of funny, you know, and

630
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: and it's a way for you can listen to that

631
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 1: song and you can laugh at it, you can have

632
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: a release while also feeling like you're striking back against

633
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: Asama bin Laden just the way that Natalie means engage

634
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: with him, which I think was more from a truly

635
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: kind of politically enlightened position and just taking him way

636
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: more seriously maybe than even Toby Keith took himself. And

637
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: then he fell into this sort of default of having

638
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: to defend his own music, and then it just gets

639
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: escalated from that. And that is a fair point. I mean,

640
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: in later years, Toby Keith made a very big point

641
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: about saying, you know what, I'm really not political. I

642
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: performed for George W. Bush, I performed for Obama, I

643
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: performed for Trump. For me, it's about the country it's

644
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: not about party lines. It's it's just so you're right

645
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. I think the political side

646
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: of it is something that he doesn't here to advertise

647
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: that much and doesn't really care to comment on publicly,

648
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: whether or not that's for a self preservation reason, because

649
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: he knows his base sort of remains to be seen

650
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: or it doesn't mean to be seen, like what happened

651
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 1: to Dixie Chicks. But um, but you're right, I don't

652
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: think he puts that first in the same way that

653
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: that Natalie Mainz takes the stand for for her political

654
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: beliefs in quite the same way. Well, it's crucial about this,

655
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: I think. And what always interests me about these types

656
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: of rivalries is that at this point, it's already too

657
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: late that it doesn't really matter like how Toby Heath

658
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: feels or even how the Dixie Chicks feel, because the

659
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: culture has taken this over and we and they've projected

660
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: their own meaning onto what this revelry means. And it's basically,

661
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: if you're on the red team, you like Toby Keith,

662
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: and if you're on the blue team, you like the

663
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks. And really, from like this point forward, even

664
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: if like their initial conflict was really about musical differences,

665
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 1: they're going to be defined in these political ways in

666
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: their career, and you could see the split in the

667
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: audience is really and the types of people that are

668
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: gonna flock to one or over the other. When really, like,

669
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 1: when the Dixie Chicks were first starting out, I'm sure

670
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: lots of conservative people loved them, you know, I'm sure

671
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: they probably had more conservative fans and liberal fans like

672
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: buying their records in the late nineties. But ten years

673
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: later that was gonna I think probably changed pretty dramatically. Yeah,

674
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was weeks before the whole

675
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: London incident. They were singing the national anthem at the

676
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: super Bowl, which is kind of the most American thing

677
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: you can do, right, And seeing the national anthem at

678
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, I mean that just their place in

679
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 1: in middle of road Americana was so so just ingrained

680
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: and and I think to hear that from them was

681
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: That's probably why it was so shocking. It wasn't just

682
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: what was said, it was who said it. One thing

683
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: that it's just sort of like a what if scenario,

684
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: you know, just looking at the Dixie Chicks and the

685
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: Toby Keith as being signifiers of like the different political

686
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: ideologies in America. You know there was that ad for

687
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 1: al Gore in two thousand and eight, Like did you

688
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: hear about that? Like they were gonna be an ad together. Yeah,

689
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: I was the Alliance for Climate Protection and they kind

690
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: of would do this thing where they would take unlikely duos.

691
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: I think they had Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich appear

692
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: in an ad together basically say we're all into this,

693
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: this climate fight against climate change together. And they asked Dixie,

694
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: the Dixie Chicks, and Toby Keith to do one together

695
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: and it fell apart, and Toby Keith kind of publicly

696
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:23,919
Speaker 1: blamed the Dixie Chicks for never agreeing on a date

697
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: and kind of threw them under the bus for why

698
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: it never came together. And that would have been a

699
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: great at that would have come together. Apparently they've they've

700
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: never met. Did you know that they've never met or

701
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: spoken to one another, at least as of a couple

702
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,760
Speaker 1: of years ago, because Toby refused to even mentioned Natalie

703
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,919
Speaker 1: Mains by name, So it's probably safe to say they're

704
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 1: still not good fans of each other. Yeah, And like

705
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: Toby yeah, he won't say her name, and like the

706
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: Dissy Chicks will occasionally take shots at him every now

707
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: and then, right, because there was like an interview in

708
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: two eleven where Marty McGuire, uh who was that? Like,

709
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: Emily Robeson was asked about Toby Keith and she accused

710
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: him of ripping off Robert o' keen song h for

711
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: his uh the gun. Yeah. Yeah. She basically said, you

712
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 1: know Toby's new song bullet in the Gun, Uh, maybe

713
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: players Robert o' keen song the Road Goes On. It

714
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: sounds kind of similar. Check it out and that's like,

715
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: you know, keens like signature song too. So like to

716
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: accuse Toby Keith of like ripping that song off was

717
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: like a pretty big accusation, but in a way it

718
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: kind of matched. Like you know what if she's if

719
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: he's gonna go for Natalie Man's as songwriting credibility and

720
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: really like you know, lay into her then hit him

721
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: where it hurts. And obviously not as politics, it's it

722
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: is how we views themselves a songwriter. So I mean

723
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:44,479
Speaker 1: that was probably the best shot they could have taken.

724
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 1: If they're still interested in stoking the feud between them

725
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: so this incident really is like relatively short lived and

726
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: yet like the aftermath of like what happened to the

727
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks especially, I mean it continues to this day,

728
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 1: but it finds their career. Yeah, and which is amazing

729
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: because you go on their Wikipedia page and Toby Keith's

730
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 1: name is all over like if you control f it's

731
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,919
Speaker 1: it's just everywhere. You go on his page and their

732
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: name is like it's not the same at all. Their

733
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: name is not on it at all. This whole conflict

734
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 1: really I don't think affected him almost at all his career,

735
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: would you say, Is that fair to say? Yeah? I mean,

736
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: like I think he eventually crested commercially, you know, as

737
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: the odds went on, and he's I think someone now

738
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 1: who isn't really a part of mainstream country at all.

739
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: I think he's someone who can still tour and do

740
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: pretty well. But you know, he's reached the age of

741
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: where most performers get like you don't have hits forever.

742
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 1: You eventually get into sort of like the legacy artist

743
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: phase and like your living off your past basically, especially

744
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: in country music, that's a very common trajectory. Um. But yeah,

745
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: I don't think his career was hurt because of you know,

746
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: him feuding with the Dixie Chicks, and with the Dixie Chicks.

747
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: You know, they're a band is still like very successful.

748
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: They have been reactive in the past, you know, fifteen years,

749
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 1: although they are now ramping up to put out a

750
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: new record uh In in the spring of but um,

751
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: I mean really, the big record that they put out

752
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the Georgia You Bush thing and

753
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: the Toby Keith feud was the record Taking the Long Way,

754
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: came out in oh seven. Yes, and they really are

755
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: stepping away. They basically divorced themselves from the country community.

756
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 1: They they say that they they consider themselves part of

757
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: the big rock and roll family. They got Rick Rubin,

758
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: who's you know, incredible rock superproducer, to make a very

759
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: sonically different record. I always thought it kind of sounded

760
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: like an Eagles record, right is that? Yeah? Fair to say,

761
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: And that that's the one with not Ready to Make Nice,

762
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: which the whole album is just addresses this whole conflict

763
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: head on. Natalie, who had only written sort of a

764
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: handful of songs in the past, had a hand in

765
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: writing I think every song on this album, and it

766
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: was therapy for her. I mean it was really them

767
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of what they've gone through and

768
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:06,400
Speaker 1: not many ready to make nice. Just is a direct

769
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 1: response to her critics, and it's just that sort of

770
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: enacted defiance. And yeah, I won multiple Grammys. You know,

771
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: it's sold I think about three million records, which is

772
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: like a very impressive haul, especially at that moment in

773
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: time in the music industry, although against significantly less than

774
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: what they were selling at their peak. And you know,

775
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: I have to say, as much as I appreciate the

776
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: fact that the Dixie Chicks were able to come back

777
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 1: from this horribly unfair treatment that they suffered in the

778
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: aftermath of the George W. Bush comment, I don't like

779
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: their records as much after that whole incident happened. There's

780
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: a there's a certain there's a certain weariness that sets

781
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: in and a lot of their music that isn't there

782
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: on the early records. The early records are very effervescent

783
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: and fun, and even a song like Goodbye Earl you know,

784
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: which is this revenge song domestic abuse, there's a there's

785
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: an you know, there's a nobiliance to that song. There's

786
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: a joy to that song. Like it's it's fun to

787
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: listen to, no matter how dark the subject matter is.

788
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: And I just feel like the subsequent record that they made,

789
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: it's a little joyless, that's a little self serious. That's

790
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,240
Speaker 1: where they're at, though I think that they were forced

791
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: into that position. Though exactly I understand why they did it,

792
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: it's just that for me personally, that's not what I

793
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: like from them. And I feel like, where where wherever

794
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: it is you want to call it, if you want

795
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: to call it, like a loss of innocence or you know,

796
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: their spirit got crushed a little bit, there's just something

797
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: kind of sad about it to me that it just

798
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: compounds the sort of tragedy if you want to use

799
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: that word, of what happened to them, you know, like

800
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: I feel like something was taken away from them by

801
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: just how harshly treated that they were. I find the

802
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: silence that followed that record even sadder though. To me,

803
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: I think that the fact that they got back in

804
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: the saddle and actually made music, and not only made

805
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: music at all, but just made music the specifically addressed

806
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:02,880
Speaker 1: what happened to them, what was done to them, and

807
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: all the death threats they received. There was a great

808
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: documentary that came out on conjunction with the album called

809
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: Shut Up and Sing, which is the chronicles their tour

810
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of the George W. Bush comments,

811
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: and the title shut Up and Sings taken from a

812
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: death threat note that Natalie mains Gets was saying that

813
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 1: outlines where and when and how she's going to be

814
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: shot unless she shuts up and sings. So it's you're right,

815
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: I mean, the innocence is gone. But I think to

816
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: pretend otherwise would have I think that almost would have

817
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: been even spookier to put out like a really fluffy,

818
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: effervescent album in the in the midst of a very

819
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: real life or death. I mean, she said later on

820
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: that she thought she had PTSD dealing with all this.

821
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: She couldn't go out to dinner with her family in

822
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: Texas because she was worried that people were gonna be

823
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: spitting in her food. That worked at the restaurant, I mean,

824
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,839
Speaker 1: she she said that they felt tainted, so they kind

825
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: of were in I can't even call it a self

826
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: imposed exile or they're a real exile with their sound,

827
00:42:57,719 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: and I actually I like the sound too. I like

828
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: the kind of rock country. Again. I thought it kind

829
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: of sounded almost like an Eagles album or something, and

830
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: so I like the sound of it. Yeah, I know,

831
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: I mean again, I wouldn't want them to pretend to

832
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: feel okay. It's just said to me that they weren't

833
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: able to move beyond it, that this was something that

834
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: was going to find them forever. And also, to get

835
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying before, you know, the

836
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: culture in a way defined both of these artists as

837
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: political artists moving forward. And you know, I'm always someone

838
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: I I really admire artists who can speak politically and

839
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: and use their platform for good and to you know,

840
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: raise the consciousness of the public. But I also have

841
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: some mixed feelings about politics becoming too dominant in art

842
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: and where it becomes a thing where you can't just

843
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: enjoy a song. You have to agree with the song.

844
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:53,879
Speaker 1: You have to agree with the message of a song.

845
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: And to me, that's not art. That's sloganeering, you know,

846
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: that's that's that's building like a consensus and the different

847
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: kind of thing. To me, like the great thing about

848
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: music and the great thing about art is that you

849
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: can unite different kinds of people under one banner and

850
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: you can get them together and you can get them

851
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: to agree on something that even if they disagree and

852
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,320
Speaker 1: everything else, they can get into this kind of music.

853
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 1: And this was an example of something that I think

854
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: became much more common later on, and now it seems ubiquitous,

855
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 1: but at the time I think it was more unique.

856
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: But this idea that like, you can't separate who someone

857
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: might vote for or what they might think politically from

858
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: their music. You know, that we can't just enjoy a

859
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: song for being a song. And that makes me. That

860
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: gives me mixed feelings. I think about some of their

861
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: subsequent work and which really has nothing to do with them,

862
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: and it's not I'm not blaming them for that, but

863
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: I think it just makes me kind of sad, you know,

864
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: it makes me sad for both of them, that now

865
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: music is another thing that's going to divide people. You know,

866
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: like this used to be something that could bring people

867
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 1: together and now we're going to this is going to

868
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 1: be another cultural that that that splits us up. When

869
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: we talk about Toby Keith, for instance, you know Toby

870
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: Keith played Trump's inauguration, you know, in sixteen, which you

871
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: know he was at a point in his career where

872
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,240
Speaker 1: he probably had to take that gig because he wasn't

873
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: going to have other big time opportunities like that. I

874
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: did have a lot to lose by taking that gig.

875
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: But it's like, if if you love Toby Keat's music,

876
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: now you have that as baggage his music along with

877
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: the Angry American. It's like, oh, it's like I like

878
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,879
Speaker 1: this song. It's like I like Whiskey Girl because it's

879
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: the dumb song. It's a song. It's a song you

880
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: hear at the bar about a girl who likes whiskey

881
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,719
Speaker 1: and you know it makes her want to, you know,

882
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: take her clothes off or whatever. And it's like, oh,

883
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: this is a dumb song I hear in a bar

884
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: and it's fun. But now it's like, instead of thinking

885
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 1: of something fun, now you're thinking about this guy who

886
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: played for Donald Trump, who like was mocking Natalie Mains

887
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: and made her life impossible in their early two thousand's.

888
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: You know, it's just the shame when these things have

889
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 1: to sort of intercede on something that doesn't have to

890
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: be there. Maybe I would agree with that overall. I

891
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: think in the case of Toby Keith, there are a

892
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: lot of his songs that that it's not just he

893
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: personally feels a certain way politically, but his songs are

894
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 1: completely a political There's certain things in some of the

895
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 1: songs that I do take objection with, and I worry

896
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: that it normalizes in some cases misogyny or nationalism or racism.

897
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: There's Beer from My Horses has that line about lynching,

898
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: which it kind of to me it sounded like he

899
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: was romanticizing it, and I always thought that was really

900
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 1: kind of troubling and problematic. And have you heard the

901
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 1: Taliban song Toby Keith Taliban song? Yeah, I don't think

902
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: I have no um it's it's it's called literally the

903
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:42,720
Speaker 1: Taliban song, and it um it marks the Taliban, which okay,

904
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: that's there, you go, but um it kind of it's

905
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: unsubtle to the point that it almost reads a satire.

906
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: It glorifies George W. Bush and like a way that's

907
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 1: almost like fetishizing him, and it kind of like cracks

908
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: jokes about like poverty experienced by victims of the Taliban

909
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,439
Speaker 1: and makes light of bombing the Middle East, and it's

910
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: just something about it. It's the politics is there, and

911
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,399
Speaker 1: some of the music too, And I and That's where

912
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: I think that in his specific case, it makes a

913
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: little tougher. I agree with what you said about music

914
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 1: should be unifying people, But with some of his stuff,

915
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:21,919
Speaker 1: I mean, even like I want to talk about Me

916
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: or you know American Ride where he expresses doubts about

917
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: global warming. I mean, there's some songs, and I know

918
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 1: he's not somebody who you know, as you said, reads

919
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: the paper and wants to write a song about social issues.

920
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: But even if it's just pandering to his bass or

921
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: just trying to write something that that resonates with his bass,

922
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: some of the um the beliefs that that he uh

923
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: puts in his songs, I do worry about normalizing things

924
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: that maybe shouldn't be normalized. But are those beliefs or

925
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 1: those just lyrics that you're putting in a song because

926
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: you're trying to get a reaction out of your audience.

927
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: Like if we listen to like rap songs that have

928
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 1: songs about murder or you know that that might have

929
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: misogynistic elements to it, we're not we're not necessarily believing

930
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: that like that's a reflection of like the artist's personal

931
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 1: point of view, or if like an artist is writing

932
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 1: a song about a murderer or any type of sort

933
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: of uh, socially unacceptable character. You know, this is something

934
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: that people turn to because they're just looking for an

935
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: expression of an idea that they might think it's interesting,

936
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:31,479
Speaker 1: but they may not literally support. And I would say

937
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: that in the case of Toby Keith songs, which again, like,

938
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: I'm not defending a song like the Taliban, because again,

939
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: I think Toby Keith is a meathead and like is

940
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: a goofball basically, But I also don't think that we

941
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:47,720
Speaker 1: should be close reading Toby Keats songs for their political

942
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,280
Speaker 1: intent or their political messages and worrying too much about

943
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: how that might negatively affect the world, because I think

944
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,760
Speaker 1: in the greater context of everything that affects the world,

945
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 1: Toby Keith is a very very small all aspect of

946
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: what makes things good or bad in the same way

947
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 1: that I think most pop music is like that. And

948
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: in a way, I feel like that's something that was

949
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,959
Speaker 1: more of a of an acceptable position in the early

950
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: two thousand's, and now I feel like we talked about

951
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: pop music with a degree of seriousness that I think

952
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: is sometimes a little foolhardy, where we have someone like

953
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, for instance, who was actually criticized in because

954
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,800
Speaker 1: she didn't endorse a political candidate, and there were people

955
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: that were actually blaming her for Donald Trump getting elected,

956
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: as if she is like a nation state that has

957
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: to set up, you know, like she's like she's Taylor

958
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: Swift half exactly, or that she's like one of the

959
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: branches of government, like she's like providing checks and balances

960
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: on the presidential branch and the congressional brands. It's like, No,

961
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift is a great songwriter, she's a great pop star.

962
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: She should not have to be someone that um is

963
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: guiding policy in this country. She should not have to peticians,

964
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 1: but she should also be allowed to did you I

965
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: mean if she has to share and did you see

966
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: the other Netflix documentary MS Americana. Yeah, exactly, And she

967
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 1: and she makes a point of very publicly wrestling with

968
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: this idea of whether she should have gotten involved in

969
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: the election, And of course she has now since become

970
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: more politically active, which is great. I think again, if

971
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: you are an artist and you feel like that's something

972
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: you want to do, you should be able to do

973
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: it obviously and not worry that your career is gonna

974
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:39,400
Speaker 1: be taken from you if you speak out. But I

975
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: also don't think that there should be an expectation that

976
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: you do it, or that you should be blamed for

977
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 1: political outcomes if you don't speak up. You know, it's

978
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: almost like the opposite is now come into effect, where

979
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: pop stars are chided if they don't speak enough. You know.

980
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: It's like the opposite of what we saw in the

981
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: early OTTs, which is a very fasten aiding development. She

982
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 1: got it both ways, though, I mean, she got sort

983
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 1: of more mainstream pop fans who are criticizing her for

984
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: not having a point of view. But then in the

985
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: documentary she in in two thousand eighteen, she's wrestling with

986
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: wanting to speak out for democratic seats for the Tennessee

987
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: Senate and House seats, and she is crying talking to

988
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:25,360
Speaker 1: her father, thinking about what happened to the Dixie Chicks

989
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:27,439
Speaker 1: and worrying about what's going to happen to her. When

990
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: she expresses her her point of view, and her dad

991
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,879
Speaker 1: is off camera talking about renting an armored car. I mean,

992
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: it's like, it doesn't it's scary how fifteen years later

993
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: it seems like the same situation for her I mean,

994
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: she sounded like she was really in fear for her life.

995
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: I mean, we're in a tangent here. We can maybe

996
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: talk about this in another episode if we talk about

997
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,240
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, I mean, we can talk about the degree

998
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 1: to which things like that are real and exaggerated. And

999
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 1: I would argue that we are not in two thousand

1000
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 1: three and her terms of a pop star expressing and

1001
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: a criticism of the president being in the same position

1002
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: that that the Dixie Chicks are. I don't think, for instance,

1003
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: that if Taylor Swift had endorsed Hillary Clinton, that country

1004
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 1: radio or any radio station would have like taken her

1005
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: off the air. I really don't think that would have happened.

1006
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:20,479
Speaker 1: I think some would, So I think some country would,

1007
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: but not not, Manny, You're right, and not certainly not

1008
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 1: the same degrees of Dixie Chicks. Well, by that point,

1009
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,399
Speaker 1: she was she didn't even need country rats anymore. I mean,

1010
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: she was already into you know phase, So I really

1011
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: and you know, and and Donald Trump obviously is a

1012
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: different president than Georgia. I mean, George W. Bush was

1013
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 1: like really popular in the early two thousands in a

1014
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 1: way that Donald Trump has never But I mean he's

1015
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,439
Speaker 1: never had like an eight percent or nine approval rating

1016
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: the way that George W. Bush did after nine eleven UM.

1017
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,359
Speaker 1: So I think it would have been easier for her

1018
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:56,839
Speaker 1: to criticize Trump knowing that there's like at least fifty

1019
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,279
Speaker 1: of the country that like hates Donald Trump and would

1020
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: have been under side. But I digress. We should pull

1021
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: back to Toby Keith in the Dixie Chicks. I feel

1022
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 1: like with these two, it's really easy to make a

1023
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 1: pro Dixie Chicks argument, right, I mean this, I mean

1024
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: it's just sort of plainly laid out, like what the

1025
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: what the pro Dixie Chicks cases? I mean, because they

1026
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: were clearly wrong. I mean, they didn't do anything wrong,

1027
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: and they just had so much taken away from them, right.

1028
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the only if you could

1029
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: call a silver lining to everything that happened to them,

1030
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: the whole sort of martyrdom, is that it did make

1031
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: them kind of left wing liberal martyring. They went from

1032
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: being popular to being important. I think they got a

1033
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: lot of attention from places like, you know, even like

1034
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,359
Speaker 1: outlets like E W and Rolling Stone that might not

1035
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: have covered them in the same way. I think they

1036
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:51,120
Speaker 1: went from being like a Shania Twain or Ti mcgrawl

1037
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: and Faith Hill to a group that meant something. I

1038
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: think that a lot of people listen to them for

1039
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 1: because because they meant something and they were drawn to

1040
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 1: them more I think, uh than sort of the average

1041
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: country act, even like a few years earlier. I don't

1042
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: think that. I think it a lot of people stopped

1043
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: listening to them, but I almost would argue that some

1044
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: good came of it too. And you mentioned that they're

1045
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,839
Speaker 1: not selling as much too. I mean, they're They're um

1046
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: taking the Long Way sold more than Toby Keys album

1047
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 1: released at the time, and it was also the era

1048
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:25,399
Speaker 1: when iTunes was starting to come out and really cut

1049
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:29,240
Speaker 1: into the sales of physical albums too. So it's interesting

1050
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: to think about exactly how much they were hurt in

1051
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 1: a career standpoint, but not spiritually. I completely understand how,

1052
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: you know what, of course they wanted to take a

1053
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:41,320
Speaker 1: hiatus and take a step back like that was traumatic

1054
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:43,319
Speaker 1: and horrible. Everything that went down with them, Yeah, I mean,

1055
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I think it absolutely hurt their

1056
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: career in the short term, but I think you're right

1057
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:50,760
Speaker 1: in the long term. You could definitely make the argument

1058
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: that it made them more significant that if they had

1059
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 1: just been a standard pop country group, they would have

1060
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: lost their commerci the momentum anyway, and they would have

1061
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: also probably been forgotten or at least, you know, become

1062
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: more of a footnote as they faded away. And because

1063
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:15,279
Speaker 1: they went through this terrible controversy, people can look at

1064
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: them and they can say like, Wow, they really stood

1065
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: for something, and they continue to stand for something and

1066
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: the people that love them. It just probably bonded them

1067
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 1: even more to the Dixie Chicks at that point. To

1068
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:28,759
Speaker 1: the point now to like where you look at younger generations,

1069
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 1: you know, people that weren't around when this whole thing

1070
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: was going down, or you know, maybe they were too

1071
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:37,359
Speaker 1: young to know what was going on. You know, they're

1072
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:39,400
Speaker 1: going back and they're and they're going to those Dixie

1073
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 1: Chicks records, you know, And I feel like those records

1074
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: have legs, maybe more in a way because I mean,

1075
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: I think the music stands up on its own, but

1076
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: when you have this outside cultural significance that hooks people in,

1077
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 1: it just makes it more likely that people are going

1078
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: to talk to you, talk about you after your commercial

1079
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,319
Speaker 1: peak has faded. Yeah, And I feel like I've been

1080
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,359
Speaker 1: spoken about their musicianship enough to I mean, I think

1081
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 1: that that's obviously one of the main things that they

1082
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 1: have going for him too, is I just think they're

1083
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 1: incredible players, incredible songwriters, incredible singers. Um. I just think

1084
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: that that's something that especially at that time too. I mean,

1085
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: they were really taking sort of the niche approach, I mean,

1086
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: very traditionalist country approach at a time when that wasn't

1087
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:22,839
Speaker 1: cool and it wasn't very popular, and it really blew

1088
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 1: up after the whole where other brother where Art Thou

1089
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:28,840
Speaker 1: type sounds started coming into play in the early two thousand's.

1090
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that that they took a musical

1091
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,399
Speaker 1: risk too, and it paid off. Now with Toby Keith,

1092
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:39,040
Speaker 1: it's much harder to make the pro case. And I've

1093
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: been kind of doing this, doing it throughout the episode

1094
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 1: because I think I'm I'm probably more um empathetic to

1095
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:48,439
Speaker 1: Toby than you are, right, I mean, is that fair

1096
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: to say? Yeah? I mean not that I'm a Toby

1097
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not a huge Tooby Keith fan, but

1098
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: like I can understand I feel like I can understand

1099
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 1: his perspective maybe like where he's coming from, and I

1100
00:56:57,600 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 1: almost feel bad, like I don't want to come across

1101
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 1: the this like you know, coastal liberal guy who doesn't

1102
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: understand the real America that that he obsensively speaks to.

1103
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: I just I worry about some of the messages and

1104
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: his songs. And also just I don't identify with with him,

1105
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: right or wrong. I just there's a certain sort of

1106
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: masculinity there that that I don't relate to. And again

1107
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:21,240
Speaker 1: that may may say more about me than it does

1108
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:23,479
Speaker 1: about him, in fact it probably does. And just also

1109
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 1: sonically I don't really like his music or as like

1110
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:28,400
Speaker 1: very much do like the Dixie Chicks. See I would

1111
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:31,840
Speaker 1: say that as someone who at least a few times

1112
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 1: each summer ends up drinking light beer on a pontoon boat. Um,

1113
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 1: I have an affinity for Toby Keats music because I

1114
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 1: feel like that is the context in which that music

1115
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 1: is best heard, you know, drinking some bruise on a

1116
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:49,280
Speaker 1: summer afternoon out on a lake somewhere where you're basically

1117
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:51,320
Speaker 1: turning your brain off and you just want to have

1118
00:57:51,360 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 1: a good time. And I think that Toby Keith at

1119
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 1: his best makes good songs for that. And what I

1120
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 1: think is unfortunate in a way about his career is

1121
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 1: that he's now defined as this right wing conservative, redneck jerk,

1122
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 1: and he's played into that. He has a lot to

1123
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: do with that too. Like I'm not absolving him of

1124
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: the responsibility of that, but I do think that for

1125
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: people who are inclined to look at him just as

1126
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 1: an antagonist of the Dixie Chicks, that maybe it might

1127
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: be worth listening to some of his hits, and because

1128
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: I think that, like they're hard to hate, you know, yeah,

1129
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: I understand that, like maybe they're not always like the

1130
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: most politically correct songs in the world, although I think

1131
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 1: there's a lot of old songs that aren't particularly politically

1132
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 1: correct that are still enjoyable to listen to and don't

1133
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: especially come under criticism from people because they do like

1134
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: at some point, you we have like a line of

1135
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: demarcation where it's maybe okay to have certain kinds of

1136
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 1: songs at a certain moment of time, and then after

1137
00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: that it becomes verboten to have a song like that.

1138
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: But in any it, I do think that for what

1139
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 1: he did, I don't think he's a great artist, and

1140
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: I think he's a much less significant artist, without question

1141
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 1: than the Dixie chicks. But again, I would just go

1142
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:18,160
Speaker 1: back to the idea of people aligning themselves with artists

1143
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 1: because they think they agree with them politically, which I

1144
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 1: understand why that happens, but I have mixed feelings about that,

1145
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:30,120
Speaker 1: and I just feel like defining art strictly by its

1146
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 1: political content or what you feel are the political motivations

1147
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: of the artist and disregarding everything else, I think that

1148
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,680
Speaker 1: is a hard way to listen to music and to

1149
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: regard music, and it just bums me out because I

1150
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes music should be an escape from that

1151
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, right, and I agree with that. It's

1152
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: just said to me like like, oh, this is this

1153
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 1: is like another thing that we just can't get away from.

1154
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:59,160
Speaker 1: Even though I understand someone who might listen to that

1155
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 1: and be a offended, and I think they have every

1156
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 1: right to be offended. But I just want people to

1157
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: listen to Whiskey Girl and from My Horses and enjoy

1158
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: the dumb charms of of those songs. I worry that

1159
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:17,440
Speaker 1: that the angry American it sounds like to me bullying rhetoric,

1160
01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 1: although I understand the context in which it was made,

1161
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 1: and I feel like his behavior towards the Dixie Chicks

1162
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 1: was also the behavior of a bully. So I think

1163
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 1: in this particular case, not being able to separate, you know,

1164
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 1: a person, their personal act and their music. To me,

1165
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: I think it's it's one and the same. And this

1166
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 1: this very specific instance, um, and I find it hard

1167
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:40,320
Speaker 1: to not feel that that he is a bully. I

1168
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:43,200
Speaker 1: but I also completely understand how there's all these other

1169
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:44,840
Speaker 1: songs that he has that that don't go down that

1170
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 1: root all and and are just fun barbecue songs for

1171
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 1: the summer. But I have a hard time getting past

1172
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: that point. I would just say that, like, if it's

1173
01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 1: hard for someone on the left to accept to be Keith,

1174
01:00:56,680 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: perhaps it's worth regarding the person on the right who

1175
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: reflexively rejects the Dixie Chicks because of what Natalie Maine

1176
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 1: said in two thousand three. You know that they decided

1177
01:01:07,400 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 1: that they were going to throw out all her records

1178
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 1: because they thought that she was some sort of like

1179
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: left wing antipatriotic, you know, anti American artist, and just

1180
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,320
Speaker 1: judge are purely based on that, even though there may

1181
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:21,320
Speaker 1: have been songs in the past that they really enjoyed,

1182
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:24,680
Speaker 1: or because those songs really stand up well, because they're

1183
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: musically great, you know, because the flip side of this

1184
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 1: is that there's people on the right who reject people

1185
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:33,040
Speaker 1: on the left who make music just purely for their

1186
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 1: political beliefs. And if that's wrong, if it's wrong for

1187
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: reactionaries on the right to kick the Dixie Chicks off

1188
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:44,480
Speaker 1: the radio, maybe it's worth looking at from the other perspective,

1189
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 1: from the left to the right, is all I would

1190
01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 1: say about that. But maybe we can all get together

1191
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: with our horses. That's a good thing about horses, whether

1192
01:01:53,640 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 1: they drink it or not. They have no political affiliations.

1193
01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:59,920
Speaker 1: They're just horses, so you should just be like horses.

1194
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't give him beer, but you know,

1195
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:04,560
Speaker 1: give him a carrot and uh, you know we'll all

1196
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:10,200
Speaker 1: party together. Oh well, Stephen, you have not convinced me

1197
01:02:10,240 --> 01:02:12,440
Speaker 1: about Toby Keith, but you have definitely made me take

1198
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 1: a more nuanced look at Angry American and some of

1199
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 1: his past working. For that, I thank you, And uh,

1200
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: I'm feeling very conflicted about defending Toby Keith here. I

1201
01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: think I am. I was the musical public defender of

1202
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: this episode. I think you're in ef Lee Bailey. You

1203
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: were incredibly incredibly good at that. It's always fun talking

1204
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,480
Speaker 1: with you about this stuff. Man, and uh, I think

1205
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 1: we'll have more Rivals next week and that'll be great alright,

1206
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: looking forward to it, sir. Thanks, thanks for listening everyone.

1207
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: Rivals is a production of My Heart Radio. The executive

1208
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:53,480
Speaker 1: producers are Shawn ty Toone and Noel Brown. The supervising

1209
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:56,560
Speaker 1: producers are Taylor s con and Tristan McNeil. I'm Jordan

1210
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 1: run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard,

1211
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: please subscribe to leave a to review from more podcasts

1212
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:04,080
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

1213
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or ever you listen to your favorite shows.

1214
01:03:07,560 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 1: M