Dixie Chicks 5 .. Rednecks 0
“Not Ready to Make Nice” .. Hey, maybe it should be the new Democrat theme song.
The Grammys sucked for the most part .. but the Dixie Chicks winning five awards made up for it all .. even for that horrible six-inch-away camera shot of Justin Timberlake's nostrils, upside down…
Five Grammys -- count 'em -- for the trio that Bushies love to hate .. including best album, record and song of the year. They won everything they were nominated for.
When Chick Natalie made her remarks about being ashamed that Bush was from Texas -- that's all she said (and he isn't even!) -- it immediately made the band targets of hate mail, boycotts and talk-radio shouters. Bushies made death threats and requested everybody call and ask for the Chicks to be banned from radio and for people to boycott their music.
And country radio did just that. And the Chicks' record sales plummeted. TV news showed a parking lot of Chicks CDs being run over by a steamroller .. people cheering .. trying to destroy a group because they exercised free speech .. the very thing our boys are over there fighting for the Iraqis to have.
How great that Joan Baez introduced The Dixie Chicks .. said she'd been told to shut up and sing too.
So sweet. If anyone deserves this, the Chicks do. "Taking the Long Way Home" is a great album .. first rate. After what they were put through, I'm really pleased to see these artists being acknowledged for their talent above all .. and plowing ahead under duress. These awards could also be an affirmation of the universal opposition to the war ..
I can just hear the whining from Fox News now, about how music has a pure librul bias. And I say to that--country music artists vote for these awards too.
Nope .. the Chicks got vindicated .. they deserved the awards and it proves they were right .. look at Bush's popularity in the polls. Now two-thirds of us are ashamed that he's even from *this country.*
Shoooot .. the Chicks were anti-Bush before anti-Bush was cool..
Here it is, the winning song -- “Not Ready to Make Nice” .. written by all three Chicks alongside Dan Wilson, it speaks directly to the political controversy that surrounded them for the past three years:
The look in Natalie’s eyes as she sings about "liking" the controversy is wonderful .. simultaneously whimsical and defiant.
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round and ’round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round and ’round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
[in criticism of the death threats the women (particularly Maines) received]
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over
