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Why a country song polarizes America
US country singer Jason Aldean at the 2018 Country Music Awards. Photo
© Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/dpa
“Try That in a Small Town” triggers a racism debate in the USA. The song is simply about the sense of community in the country, claims the white singer. But it’s not that simple.
A prominently placed US flag, dramatic guitar riffs, the obligatory cowboy hat: The first scenes of the video for “Try That in a Small Town” fulfill common country clichés. But it’s about much more than music. With his song meets singer Jason Aldean sets a very specific tone in the American Kulturkampf.
Actually, nobody paid much attention to the song when the 46-year-old country music star released it in May. In mid-July, however, he sent a music video afterwards – and that caused heated debates, during which the US music television station CMT stopped broadcasting. By early August, the song climbed to number one on the Billboard chart, where it only stayed for a few days and then plummeted a whopping 20 spots. What remains is another example of the heated mood in the country that goes far beyond the political arena.
“Shameful vision of gun extremism”
“You force an old woman out of her car at a red light, point a gun at the owner of a liquor store,” Aldean sings in the song he and his band perform outside a courthouse at night. Surveillance videos of raids and excerpts from various demonstrations are projected onto its facade – initially these were also protests by the civil rights movement “Black Lives Matter”. In the meantime, some scenes have been removed from the YouTube version, which has been viewed around 29 million times – for copyright reasons, the record company says.
“You think you’re cool when you spit in a cop’s face, step on the flag and set it on fire,” Aldean continues. “Yeah, you think you’re tough.” The central message: In a small town something like that is not tolerated, because people there take care of their own kind. There he has his grandfather’s gun at hand, they say, and threateningly: “Just look how far you can get.” The video ends with archive footage of a rural idyll at sunset. In between: silhouettes of people with hunting rifles.
“What a shameful vision of gun extremism and vigilante justice,” wrote Tennessee MP Justin Jones to X. Country colleague Sheryl Crow spoke on the same platform. Glorification of violence “has nothing to do with small towns or America”. The call for racially motivated violence is clear, say the critics. It is a typical “dog whistle” – a dog whistle that transports a certain image to the right margin through language and symbolism.
The location isn’t just any old one: The Maury County Courthouse in the state of Tennessee was the scene of several lynchings in the 20th century. In 1927, a white mob kidnapped a black teenager from a jail cell, dragged him chained to a car across town, and finally hung him outside the courthouse for allegedly molesting a white girl. This racist stereotype has been used many times in US history to justify lynch justice.
Does Aldean serve racial prejudice?
The crimes listed in the song are also associated with black people who live in “inner cities” – i.e. in big city centers – in the USA. And while most protests against police violence are peaceful, right-wing circles have consistently portrayed Black Lives Matter as a radical anti-police movement. According to critics, Aldean not only conjures up a moral divide between people in the city and people in the country, but also a divide between black and white that is to be countered with the use of force.
Aldean denied the allegations in a statement. The song is a tribute to the sense of community with which he grew up. “Not a single line in the song mentions or suggests race,” says the singer. Shortly thereafter, he chose slightly different words: “I’m a proud American. (…) I want it to go back to how it was before all this shit happened,” he told a cheering crowd at a concert in Cincinnati. “I love my country. I love my family. And I will do everything to protect it.”
The successful singer evokes the small town idyll, although he has different roots himself. Aldean hails from Macon, Georgia, a city of around 150,000 people. Today he lives in the country metropolis Nashville. Population: almost 700,000.
Jason Aldean is a supporter of Donald Trump
Conservative US politicians have long used similar rhetoric. As early as the mid-1960s, people were referring to violence in the cities that was allegedly completely out of control, contrasting it with the peaceful, patriotic life in the country and also happily bringing in country stars for the right soundtrack. In 1970, President Richard Nixon declared October “Country Music Month”.
While many country stars are explicitly apolitical or supportive of Democrats, others like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent make no secret of their conservative leanings. Jason Aldean is also a longtime supporter of Donald Trump; In 2022 we celebrated New Year’s Eve together. In the dispute over “Try That in a Small Town”, the ex-president jumped to the musician’s side: Aldean was a “fantastic guy with a great new song,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. And: “Support Jason to the last.”