The hit song “Not Ready to Make Nice” by The Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) has been making the rounds on TikTok over the past couple of weeks after conservative users posted videos with the song to rally against Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the 2024 presidential election and express support for the Republican Party.
Some TikTokers have posted videos of them mouthing lyrics like “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?” as the song plays in the background. Others have also imposed text onto their videos, saying things like “Using this song because this is exactly how the liberal party is treating us conservatives,” or have posted the videos with hashtags like “#trump” and “#useyourvoice.”
But as the videos gained traction, liberal TikTokers began responding, chiding people who didn’t understand the political context behind the song, which was released in 2006 as a direct response to the backlash The Chicks received for not supporting the Iraq War.
“Media literacy is so [dead] if the maga individuals don’t know the history of this song and The Chicks bc yall this song is about people like YOU,” one user wrote in a TikTok.
On March 10, 2003—days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq—The Chicks’ lead singer and Texas native Natalie Maines said onstage in London: “We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”
After news outlets reported on Maines’ remarks, many of the group’s fans who supported Republican President George W. Bush erupted in outrage. The Chicks had been at the top of the country music world at the time, says Marissa R. Moss, a music journalist and the author of Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be. But after Maines’ remarks, country radio stations stopped playing their music as thousands of people called in to complain about the group. The group even received death threats. While Maines initially apologized for disrespecting the office of the President, she later retracted her apology.
“Not Ready to Make Nice” was written by all three band members—Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire—along with singer-songwriter Dan Wilson. The song includes lyrics like: “I’m not ready to make nice / I’m not ready to back down / I’m still mad as hell.” Maines previously described the album the song appears on as “pure therapy” (The Chicks’ publicity team didn’t respond to a request for comment).
Moss says she considers Maines’ remarks to be “one of the more significant events in country music history” and the song to be “one of the most important protest songs of the modern era.”
“Their lives were made to be not just miserable, not just financially impacted, not just their creativity attempted to be stifled, but their physical safety and safety of their families was threatened,” Moss says. And yet—“They literally said no, we’re not gonna say sorry.”
“Not Ready to Make Nice” went on to be a hit, winning three Grammy Awards. Moss says the song showed artists that they could “speak [their] mind” and receive backlash, but still “come back” and make music and find an audience that appreciates it.
Moss says it’s “ironic” that conservatives on social media are now using the song to express support for the Republican Party. She says there’s a “long tradition” of people assuming that all country music or musicians share conservative values—like how many people misinterpreted Martina McBride’s song “Independence Day” as a patriotic anthem when it’s really a song about domestic violence, Moss says.
“They’re using a song … by women that stands for everything that they claim to stand against,” Moss says of the conservative TikTokers using “Not Ready to Make Nice” to rally against the Democratic Party. “Maybe everyone needs to do a little bit more research and they will maybe gain some empathy from that experience.”
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