Small-town America, a country music video, and racism

Justin Jones is one of the members of the Tennessee state legislature who was controversially expelled from that body for alleged failure to comply with decorum norms when he stood up for victims of mass shootings earlier this year.  Jones tweeted a few days ago, "Don't let the same politicians tell you that a racist song is about supporting 'small towns' while they allow rural hospitals to close without Medicaid expansion, defund public education in rural counties, and keep small-town folks trapped in poverty with starvation wages."

The sentiment about politicians standing up for "small town" values while undermining them and the wellbeing of rural folks generally was one I was on board with.  That sentiment is reflected in many posts to this blog.  But I had no idea what song lyrics Jones was speaking of--and who was standing up for the song and for small towns.

I went looking for more and found this from the Republican speaker of the Tennessee House, "@CMT [Country Music Television] caved to the radical left.  Mainstream media call songs about 'killing police' powerful, exposing-voices that speak the truth, but @jason_aldean speaks his truth--the media can't handle it, so they attempt to silence him and the #1 iTunes downloaded country song." 

I still didn't know what song was being referenced until I heard this NPR segment on Thursday evening about Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town."  Here's the lede:  

Country Music Television (CMT) says it will no longer air the music video "Try That In a Small Town" by Jason Aldean after critics of the video said it contained lyrics that glorified gun violence and conveyed traditionally racist ideas.

A CMT spokesperson confirmed the move to NPR on Thursday, but offered no comment on the reasoning.

Since the video's release on Friday, it's emerged as a familiar kind of political litmus test, with interpretations of its message often falling along voting divides.

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In a statement released alongside the video, Aldean said the song represents an "unspoken rule" for those raised in small towns: "We all have each other's backs and we look out for each other."

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But much of the criticism around the video has less to do with these clips than its setting: The Maury County Courthouse building in Columbia, Tenn., which serves as an American-flag-draped backdrop for Aldean and his band.

The landmark was the site of race riots in 1946 as well as a 1927 lynching.

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Threats to outsiders (and the implication those outsiders are from cities) are present throughout the song's lyrics, which begin with a list of crimes that might happen in urban settings ("Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk / carjack an old lady at a red light") then crescendo into the titular chorus:

Well, try that in a small town / See how far you make it down the road / Around here we take care of our own / You cross that line, it won't take long / For you to find out, I recommend you don't.

Aldean ups the vigilante ante by bridging the second chorus with a reference to gun rights, singing:

I've got a gun that my granddad gave me / they say one day they're gonna round up. / Well that s*** might fly in the city / good luck / Try that in a small town.

A journalist who writes about country music for The Tennessean was interviewed for the NPR segment that aired Thursday evening, and he suggested that CMT's removal of the video shows a newfound sensitivity to racial issues within the country music community.   

You can watch the video here.  

What is absolutely undisputed is that the song pits rural against urban, suggesting that the former is more virtuous.  There's an openly nostalgic bit at the end of the video where the singing stops and a video vignette about farmers dropping work on their own crops to help a neighbor in more urgent need.  One of the presumptively rural residents comments on the practice, "it's what this community stands for ... if you need some help, you'll get it."  There's also an image of a farm tractor with a golden glow, in contrast to the images of urban violence that dominate the early portions of the video.  

I was struck in listening to the lyrics of Aldean's "Try that in a Small Town" that the sentiments echo Merle Haggard's "Okie form Muskogee," released in 1969.  

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin' right, and bein' free

We don't make a party out of lovin'
We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do 

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all

"Okie from Muskogee," of course, was released back before every reference to urban was presumptively raced Black or brown and every reference to rural or small town was heard as an obvious and irrefutable association with whiteness.  

You'll find lots of posts on this blog about the pitting of rural against urban in this era of polarization.  Here's just one of them.  

Here is a Washington Post analysis of the music video, and here is a very thoughtful essay about it in the Daily Yonder.  

Postscript:  New York Times conservative columnist David French published "Try Tolerance in a Small Town" on July 27, 2023.  He calls out small-tow racism based on his own experiences and that of his family's in Columbia, Tennessee, where the Aldean video was shot.