Jason Aldean, what did you do?

On the Jason Aldean song debacle—I personally really like my Weird Al version I penned to break the awkward tension of this tune’s affect on the USA, entitled “Try that in a Ball Gown”, inspired by a Glenda-the-Good-Witch style meme—but I digress.

I live in the rural state of Montana. We are the fourth largest state in the union, with a population of barely over 1 million people. We are a state predominantly made up of small towns. I live in the state’s largest city of Billings, which has a population of 160,000, if we factor in the outlying areas.

Montana operates most widely on a Libertarian belief system, regardless of which party one casts their vote: work hard. Pull your weight in society. Be kind and courteous and give others room to be who they are, as long as they aren’t victimizing neighbors or taking their half out of the middle. Be law-abiding, but don’t put too many frivolous laws in place. We are the “Live and Let Live” state.

This is shocking to folks who move here, thinking that it’s going to be a narrow-focused, heavily religious, MAGA-owned, one-note extreme conservative steamroller, based upon Trump winning here by 20 points in 2020.

Montana could not be further from that stereotype. We’re not the Bible Belt. People’s faith is their own business. And so are our politics.

Thanks to the American propaganda machine, which Jason Aldean has now become part of, this ridiculous ideology persists.

Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace and Neil Thrasher wrote “Try That in a Small Town”. As a songwriter myself, my feeling is that it’s a pretty terrible song. I’m not trying to grind an axe—believe me, I’ve written plenty of stinkers in my time. Yet they were never recorded by a major label artist. Even Aldean’s label-mates have come out and called it “bad songwriting”. Yet Aldean chose to sing it. And coupled with an awful video, Aldean will be the one to pay for his choices in participating with this messaging.

The lyrics to the song are pretty trite and stereotypical, not much of a biggie: no carjacking old ladies, no stomping on flags, no yelling at cops, don’t take my gun, bla bla, the usual god-and-country tropes drawing a second-grade sketch of “right and wrong” — but it’s the video that is horrific.

Whoever made that video very consciously put Aldean singing on the steps of a courthouse where infamous lynchings of black people took place. And all the riot footage—just, wow. It’s a propoganda piece that’s pretty blatant, no matter what your system of belief is.

Jason Aldean is claiming he didn’t know about the steps and the stock riot footage in the video; maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But too bad—that’s on his brand now.

What I’m seeing happen because of that horrible video, in my social media feeds, is just more division.

And that was the song’s purpose, apparently —more on that in a minute.

In my feed I now see there are a lot of people hacking on small towns themselves rather than Aldean’s song—calling them bigoted, dangerous, trashy, many other things. Maybe that’s their experience of them.

Yet the thing that makes me the most sad about this mediocre trope of a song (sorry Aldean, it’s an anthem to being overly “on-point”) is that it’s now creating the Slick Violent City Folk vs Wholesome Vigilante Small Town folk vibe—as it’s designed to do.

As ALL propaganda is designed to do.

It’s just more division, more stereotypes, where the song had SUCH an opportunity to spotlight the BEST in caring for one another.

We’ve been groomed as a nation since FOREVER to pick a side and stereotype and generalize, and hate that other side, and this trait has become particularly nauseating since 2017; it’s been a real nightmare to watch, if you work in consciousness, this whole “you are or you aren’t” mentality. As if the binary existence, in ANY way, is human.

So on the small town note, thanks to Aldean’s songwriting team’s 4th-grade lyrical weaving—(not gonna give them a pass there):

My experience with small towns in Montana is very positive. I know there are some tougher ones out there in Montana, and I haven’t ventured to those — just as I haven’t ventured to dangerous inner-city places either. I also know I’m white. Though I may be gay, “white” trumps “gay” in the bigot’s handbook, so I’m likely not going to experience the same garbage my BIPOC pals would. No matter how gay-gitty-gay-gay I am.

However, I personally know black gay people in small towns that are dearly loved, and trans people in small towns that are beloved members of the community. Because in MOST small towns, every person matters to the social ecosystem of the town. At least in our Montana small towns. I understand other states’ cultures differ.

I like small towns A LOT, because everybody can be their own brand of weirdo. Nobody cares who you are in a small town; just be kind, respectful, and give people room to be human. And the bitties who do care are generally eye-rolled by the rest of the town—politely. Because there is a grace in a small town.

This grace is a form of general acceptance, because you’re not anonymous, and everybody has to live with one another. There’s no anonymous hatred in a small town; if you’re going to be hateful, it’s on you and everybody knows who you are, what you said, and what you did. Your consequences are not washed into population density.

Are there towns full of possies of hateful people? Sure. And there are gangs of hateful people in large city? Yes. Hate seems to be population-blind.

Yet the overt propoganda piece that this song was turned into by the label, really ruined an opportunity for Aldean to sing about caring for one another; about looking out for your neighbor; about having respect for those you cohabitate with, a respect for community, and respect for your nation.

You’re no Dolly Parton, Jason.

Even though I find the lyrics to be sadly obvious, and propagating the type of the ignorant small town white guy who thinks they’re “gonna take his granddaddy’s gun” (OHHHH my god, the eye roll emoji JUST isn’t big enough right here, and if I were a white rural male, I’d be pissed at the Bubba analogy, but I digress 🙄)— I blew off the stereotypes in this tune to try and find the “caring for one another” aspect of the song that I could relate with, hanging out in small Montana towns. When the song would come on, I’d sing it (sort of) substituting in my mind “we care for one another” in my consciousness, while ignoring some of the Bubba lyrics. Because that’s my experience of a small town.

But then—the video.

Wow.

The video kicked the nail through the coffin of the obvious, and the benefit of the doubt that I was TRYING to give the tune while inserting my own experience of sweet small Montana community— fell apart.

This song was meant to be exactly what it is being interpreted as—a dog whistle, a white rural bigoted male progopganda piece; City people are violent, multiracial, and non-patriotic. Small town people are righteous, white, and exact violence only when caring for another.

That’s the video.

Aldean’s song —again—is a typical nod to white community, at best. If you take away the disaster of on-point tropes, and the “good-ol-boy” reference, the video is consciously awful, and was sending a very clear message in a not-so-subtle dog whistle way to white rural boys everywhere, to hold their white American ground no matter what. As in, “I’m standing on the lynching steps, get it? Get it, good-ol-boys??”

…and that makes me so sad.

It makes me sad that Jason Aldean went in that direction. Really sad.

It makes me sad that once again, music was used to divide, not unite.

It makes me sad that the unifying opportunity country music has—kindness, Americana, healthy faith, family, celebrating freedom for ALL people under our Constitution, community pride, that the likes of Dolly Parton have made a wide-standing career out of—is being politicized and dog-whistled to death, as has our nation’s flag.

It makes me sad that we can’t just sing about community without threatening a lynching or a beating if you “cross the line” in that community. I get we all theoretically wanna beat the butt of the town A-hole once in awhile, but standing singing on the lynching steps?

Yeah. That’s an entirely different message.

It’s made me realize that our nation has really, really fallen into a place of ignorance and fear. Of overt division and identity tropes. We are choosing to lose the nuance of the complex personal experience with one another in lieu of creating these propoganda pieces that highlight the WORST of our nation’s history and behavior. That a VIDEO would be made, for a major country artist—like this?

The label only does that if there’s money attached. And apparently, there’s a lot of money in fear, and hatred, and division, and really, really obvious stereotypes.

And that’s absolutely NOT what living in a small town is like, where everyone’s nuances, and differences, and complex eccentricities make up the balance of a community that depends on one another.

I’m tired of this continuous need to create cultural division in this nation by those trying to cash out on people’s fear. Shame on you, Aldean and Aldean’s label.

Don’t you drag my Americana through your greed.

Try THAT in my small town.