(UnitedVoice.com) – Country music star Jason Aldean and his wife are well-known conservatives. Recently, the singer released the video for his song “Try That in a Small Town,” and the Left was outraged. CMT has now pulled it, and the singer has responded to the controversy. According to itunescharts.net, the song has reached the #1 spot in the US.
Aldean’s song is about growing up in a small town. Its lyrics talk about what residents of tight-knit communities like that will and will not allow to happen. For example, the lyrics talk about people who think they can rob business owners and get away with it in other cities. Or someone who stomps on the American flag and disrespects the police. The singer croons, “Well, try that in a small town; see how far you make it down the road.”
Critics accused the singer of glorifying gun culture. People who were at the Route 91 Festival in 2017, the deadliest mass shooting in American history, attacked him for the lyrics. Aldean was performing when the shooting began. Sheryl Crow mentioned it when she criticized him as well.
.@Jason_Aldean I’m from a small town. Even people in small towns are sick of violence.There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. You should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting.
This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame https://t.co/cuOtUO9xjr
— Sheryl Crow (@SherylCrow) July 19, 2023
Others called the song a “sundown town song,” in reference to the towns where black people weren’t allowed to be after dark, or they would be killed in the Jim Crow era. In the music video, Aldean performed the song on the steps of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site where a mob of more than 300 white men lynched a black teenager. CMT pulled the music video prompting Aldean to respond to the controversy.
In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous.…
— Jason Aldean (@Jason_Aldean) July 18, 2023
The singer said his song was none of the things people were making it out to be about. He maintained that it wasn’t political, explaining that it was meant to be about a community that takes care of one another no matter what color they are or what they believe. As for the Route 91 criticism, he made it crystal clear that the last thing he wanted was something like that ever to happen again.
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