A solemn rock guitar riff pierces a down-tempo, minor-key, atmospheric intro. Slow handclaps join in, evoking community. I settle into this groove and wait for the singer’s opening lines. As a listener familiar with contemporary country music and its tropes, I’m primed by the opening of Jason Aldean’s latest single, “Try That in a Small Town,” to expect a contemplative, maybe even philosophical anthem. Into the low-key soundscape floats Aldean’s melancholy tenor. His lines, as much a flow as a melody, are delivered in a rap-influenced style well known to country listeners since the mid-2000s.
Aldean’s single has sparked widespread backlash in response to the violence lurking beneath its good ol’ boy façade.
The track’s title invokes a familiar genre, espoused by countless paeans to small-town and rural life, from Justin Moore’s “Small Town USA” to Miranda Lambert’s “Famous in a Small Town,” Darius Rucker and Luke Bryan’s “Small Town” and Aldean’s own “Fly Over States.” These songs tout the simple pleasures of country life while often spurning the snooty, hectic ways of the city. But Aldean’s single has sparked widespread backlash in response to the violence seemingly lurking beneath its good ol’ boy facade. The Country Music Television network pulled the video on Monday amid criticism that it promoted vigilante justice and violence against American police brutality protesters and echoed tropes of racialized violence, including lynching.
Country musicians have insisted on the dignity and humanity of humble rural folk — Dolly Parton in “Coat of Many Colors,” Merle Haggard in “Mama’s Hungry Eyes,” Buck Owens in “Streets of Bakersfield.” By contrast, Aldean in this track launches a saber-rattling vision of armed threat and vigilantism in the name of small-town values, while aligning himself with small-town origins. For some time, Aldean has waged culture war battles on social media. Here he does so on the backs of small-town people and country music itself.
And indeed, the lyrics by Nashville songwriters Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace and Neil Thrasher forgo any tribute to sunsets, fishing holes and neighbors who greet you by name. Instead, we’re led to feel an immediate sense of danger and urgency. “Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk / Carjack an old lady at a red light / Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store / You think it’s cool,” Aldean croons to open the song.
Who thinks it’s cool? Outsiders, we learn in the chorus, which is both climactic and seethes with threats (and perversely, recalls the chorus in Tracy Lawrence’s “Find Out Who Your Friends Are”). With a guitar and drum crescendo the second verse begins, “Got a gun that my granddad gave me.” This verse also names the enemy: “the city,” a long-freighted symbol.
Perhaps Aldean could have gotten away with this subtext. But the imagery of the music video, when coupled with its lyrics, sends an unmistakable message. We see a mix of news and stock footage of protests (although, it turns out, not necessarily U.S. protests) juxtaposed with more random robberies and carjackings. Someone sets a flag on fire. We watch police in riot gear charge protesters again and again, while cars burn. Commentators have noted that Aldean sings in front of Maury County Courthouse in Tennessee, the site of the 1927 lynching of 18-year-old Henry Choate, who was accused of assaulting a 16-year-old white girl.
As someone who has lived and was raised in small towns and has studied, taught and written about them, I reject the picture painted in this country single release. It conjures and weaponizes a brazenly violent image of small-town life and values, pitting this against an urban specter. The enemy is evoked in the song lyrics by crime and disrespect toward old ladies, cops, small business owners, the flag — and, most controversially, video footage evoking recent civil rights protests.
Apparently, Jason Aldean has never lived in a small town. Still, he speaks for small-town residents, in a sneering, bloodthirsty voice. To be clear, Aldean received no songwriting credit on “Try That in a Small Town.” But in response to criticism this week, he defended and personally identified with the message of the track and its video.
For those who declare their listening preferences in terms of “anything but country,” the present controversy is likely to confirm perceptions of country music as a reactionary or bigoted genre. It has rekindled such perceptions in the media (for example, the Independent: “The Jason Aldean Video Is Just the Tip of the Country Music Iceberg”).
This is unfortunate. In fact, country music is made up of conservative and reactionary voices, liberal and progressive voices, and voices in between. It affords listeners a unique space to ponder the significance of ordinary lives, to pause and consider what really matters, and, through the music, to feel something. Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors,” Garth Brooks’ “The Dance,” Jessica Andrews’ “Who I Am” and Kenny Chesney’s “There Goes My Life” are just a few of many examples.
Jason Aldean’s latest track and video turns its back on this rich history of humanity in favor of what country singer-songwriter Tyler Childers addresses in his title track “Long Violent History.” Childers has been using his musical voice and platform to amplify this message, and I’ll give him the final word.