While performing in Massachusetts this weekend, Jason Aldean took a moment to reflect on the backlash surrounding his song “Try That In A Small Town.”
“We thought it was a really cool song. The message that we wanted to get out there has completely gotten overshadowed by all the bulls—,” Aldean told the crowd in a Boston suburb.
“I was laying in bed last night and I’m thinking to myself, you guys did this better than anybody, right? Because I remember a time, I think it was April of 2013, when the Boston Marathon bombings happened. You guys remember this, right? What I saw when that happened was a whole, not a small town – a big-a– town – come together. No matter of your color, no matter anything,” he said to a lively audience at the Xfinity Center in a fan-recorded video.
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Jason Aldean took a moment at his Massachusetts show to speak to the resiliency of the state in wake of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, while discussing the message behind his song “Try That In A Small Town.” (Connie Chornuk via Getty Images)
“The whole country, especially Boston, came together to find these two p—– that did that, right? And anybody of you guys that would’ve found those guys before the cops did, I know you guys from Boston, and you guys would’ve beat the s— out of [them],” he added, of imprisoned Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev and his deceased brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, both responsible for the act of terrorism.
Three people, including one child, died from the bombings at the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Hundreds were injured. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
“I’ve been trying to say this,” he circled back to his song. “This is not about race. It’s about people getting their s— together. Acting right. Acting like you got some common sense.”
“We are a country, the greatest one in the world. And I know you guys are like me, you want to be able to send your kids to school and not have to worry about something happening while they’re at school. Or letting them go to a movie on the weekends, just like we all did growing up. And I have to worry about are they going to come home or not?”
Jason Aldean spoke at length about the message behind his song “Try That In A Small Town” while performing at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday. (Rich Fury/ACMA2019/Getty Images for ACM)
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“I don’t give a s— what color you are. If you’re acting out, burning down buildings, costing taxpayers all this money, just so you can show that you’re p—– off, to me, I just don’t get that,” he added.
Jason Aldean appears in the official music video for “Try That In A Small Town.” The video took place in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where other music videos and films have been shot. (BBR Music Group/Jason Aldean YouTube)
In the “Small Town” music video, which was released earlier this month, Aldean’s lyrics are sung while news coverage from the 2020 riots illustrates his message. “Cuss out a cop spit in his face / stomp on the flag and light it up,” Aldean sings, along with footage of the described instances.
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He also sings in front of the Maury County Courthouse, which has an American flag hanging from it. The government building can be found in Columbia, Tennessee. It was previously the site of the lynching of Black man Henry Choate, in 1927.
TackleBox, the production company which produced Aldean’s music video, shared in a statement to Fox News Digital that the location is a “popular filming location outside of Nashville,” which Aldean did not select himself. “Any alternative narrative suggesting the music video’s location decision is false,” it added.
Several movies and music videos have been filmed at the location, including the 2022 Lifetime Original movie “Steppin’ into the Holiday” with Jana Kramer and Mario Lopez, the 2022 Paramount holiday film, “A Nashville Country Christmas” with Tanya Tucker, and a Runaway June video for their 2019 track, “We Were Rich.”
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Aldean previously rejected claims of promoting divisiveness, insisting that the song “refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences.”