In 2003, the all-female country music band the Dixie Chicks committed career suicide when the lead singer, Natalie Maines, told a London audience during a concert that the band was “ashamed the president of the United States [George W. Bush] is from Texas.” The girls returned home to boycotts and threats. It took them years to rebuild their brand.
Just a few days ago, country music star Zach Bryan pulled a stunt that’s been dubbed by many as a Dixie Chicks 2.0. On October 6, the “Pink Skies” singer posted a snippet of his new song “Bad News” on Instagram. Some of the lyrics he chose to feature triggered a visceral reaction in his largely conservative fan base.
“I heard the cops came / Cocky motherf**kers, ain’t they? / And ICE is gonna come bust down your door / Try to build a house no one builds no more / But I got a telephone / Kids are all scared and all alone / The bars stopped bumping, the rock stopped rolling / The middle finger’s rising and it won’t stop showing / Got some bad news / The fading of the red, white, and blue.”
From DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to fellow country star John Rich, Bryan received heat for the lyrics, especially considering that he’s a U.S. Navy veteran. X users and MAGA supporters suggested boycotts, the DHS mocked him by using his song “Revival” in an ICE recruitment video, and figures in conservative media like Tomi Lahren and Fox News slammed him as unpatriotic.
When Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of “The Rick Burgess Show” and “Strange Encounters,” got wind of Bryan’s latest scandal, he couldn’t help but admit that “this one’s going to hurt a little bit.”
“He can write about whatever he wants, but the people, like I say, can respond however they want to,” he says.
But the people who make up Byran’s audience are largely conservative, as are the majority of country music fans, which doesn’t bode well for the Oklahoma troubadour.
“If he writes a song to his fan base condemning ICE and getting on that wagon, we’ll see,” says Rick.
While Rick’s producer, Adler, understands the argument that America was built on immigrants, the reality is: “We are not in a nation-building phase.”
“The entire world [is] coming here to live off of our welfare programs, and you can’t sustain a country if you do that,” he says.
“Plus legal immigration is how the country was built, not illegal,” adds Rick.
To hear more of the panel’s analysis, watch the episode above.
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The post ‘Cocky motherf**kers, ain’t they?’ Zach Bryan’s anti-ICE song is Dixie Chicks 2.0 appeared first on TheBlaze.
