By Raegan Boettcher
“It feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue”
— Toby Keith, “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” (2002)
I grew up in Missouri — sometimes, admitting that makes people cringe. My town is fairly suburban, but if you go anywhere outside of the immediate center, you’ll find sprawling Midwestern monoculture crops and at least a few dairy farms. All of this is to say, I grew up listening to classic country music on long car-rides to my grandparents’ house, on the bus to school, and in the kitchen while my mother baked a homemade pie.
Lately, I’ve been returning to old country music stars because they remind me of my grandparents and spending hot summer nights catching fireflies out in their backyard. My grandfather always used to play the sweet melodies of Patsy Cline and the bluesy rhythms of Johnny Cash for me. I learned to love Hank Williams and Willie Nelson. They sang about love and loss and loneliness — I used to complain, but I always kept it tucked away in a chamber of my heart.
Returning to the songs of my childhood, several years down the line, made me think about how country music has changed so drastically from the classic “outlaw country” that my grandparents would play for me to the conservative pop-country we have topping the charts now. Nowadays, Top 40 Country all sounds thematically the same: a good ol’ southern man, who likes to hunt and drive his truck around backroads before coming home to his loyal wife, child, and dog, croons in your ear about simple living and loving his country. He drives around his euphemistic Big Green Tractor and cracks open a cold beer while he settles in the land of the free and home of the brave. But where did country music begin?
COUNTRY ROOTS
Country stems from Southern music traditions like Delta Blues, Tejano, and various other traditions such as Creole and Cajun folk. These genres originate from the cultures of Southern Black Americans, particularly in Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, and from Mexican Americans in Texas; these traditions, in turn, were inspired by historical music practices from South America and Africa. The amorphous genre that we refer to as “country” emerges from this lineage of folk traditions and are traced further to global roots.[1]
Country music, in its earliest forms, functioned as a mode of primarily rural, working-class radicalism. Artists interrogated structures of economic and political segregation. Outlaw artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were notorious for their radical class politics. Seeger’s banjo “surrounded hate and forced it to surrender.”[2] Guthrie scrawled on his guitar: “This machine kills fascists.”[3] Seeger was known to march with labor unions and spoke out against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Seeger’s song “Talking Union” was heralded as a working-class anthem, detailing specific instructions on how to build labor unions:
“Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong.”[4]
Guthrie wrote “Old Man Trump,” in which he protested against his landlord, Fred Trump (Donald Trump’s father), because Trump barred the entry of Black residents into his complex.[5] Additionally, Harry McClintock in the early 20th century crafted a politics of leisure in favor of working-class liberation and even Johnny Cash circulated anti-war, left-wing politics in his song “What is Truth?”[6]
Ties to leftist radicalism uphold the foundation to country music, tracing back to Appalachian music that touted strong power-to-the-people politics.[7] Artists imbued their music with folk tradition and aesthetics of the working-class experience, providing a vehicle for working-class solidarity. But, of course, it could never be that simple. Country music was often touted by cultural critics and politicians as something “purely American.” In other words, something purely white, entirely irrespective of its multicultural origins. Country music was transformed by right-wing conservative politics as a countermovement to popular Black art forms, like jazz in the 1920s and Rock’n’roll in the 1960s and 70s.[8] At the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Ford pushed folk dances like square dancing as a way to combat the ascension of Black and Jewish art in popular culture.[9] Ford funded the standardized practices of square dancing in public school curriculum as a way to cement and reiterate a white nationalist culture.
During the McCarthy era of US politics, artists like Guthrie, Seeger, and Sis Cunningham were pushed out of the American mainstream due to accusations of Communist-sympathizing and engaging with leftist politics; other artists like Burl Ives were able to survive by giving over names to HUAC.[10] The rise of conservative political projects molded country music into a right-wing symbol, and simultaneously sanitized white working-class radicalism, removing the left-wing potential for country music. The political trajectory of popular country music in the 20th century largely followed a logic of racial and political segregation. Country music became a conservative bourgeois method of cultivating a national identity — one that was unique and pure, one that never truly existed.
SPREADING THE WHITE IMAGINATION
Ultimately, white identity politics and deeply woven racism trumped class interest and smothered the potential for class solidarity. Right-wing political projects posited a national culture built on white racial hegemony rather than allowing for identification through material relationships.[11] Country music grew from the seeds of radicalism but morphed to push a front of surface level white cultural signifiers like staunch Christianity and religious doctrines, amorphous “family values,” and the ever-present ideal of the white picket fence.
In modern country music, songs typically idolize an aesthetic and lyrical affect symbolic of the working-class while ignoring material reality. Country music’s actual social relations are that of the middle class, constructing a kind of suburban cowboy-ism. Today’s popular country singers use superficial tokens and lyrics to build this imagination, vaguely gesturing towards farm work, dirty boots, and the rural landscape. The country music industry and its artists make millions of dollars a year on this constructed imagination of the working-class struggle despite possessing no material basis. Luke Bryan, in 2016, wrote the song “Good Directions,” in which he says:
“I was sitting there, selling turnips on a flat-bed truck
Crunching on a pork rind when she pulled up
She had to be thinking this is where rednecks come from.”[12]
The singer is positioned as a poor farmer who falls for a Hollywood girl when she gets lost looking for the interstate. In this song, the construction of a false working-class identity imagines American whiteness to be the economic and cultural foundation of this country, ignoring the reality that this country relies on exploited labor of impoverished people, not specific to the white working-class. Rather, the white working-class in country music becomes a cultural signifier instead of a description of an actual social relation or a recognition of material social power.
This verse is particularly interesting due to Bryan’s use of the term “redneck.” Though the historical origins of this term are somewhat debated, it was once associated with labor uprisings in 1920s Appalachia. In 1921, during the Battle of Blair Mountain, 10,000 to 20,000 Appalachian coal miners fighting for unionization clashed with company enforcers and the National Guard over the course of a week — it was the largest uprising since the Civil War.[13] Those protesting wore red bandanas around their neck, earning them the title “Rednecks.” At one time used as a derogatory identifier of Communist sympathizers, the exploited imagery of this term by the middle and upper classes further suppresses radical roots in the South and Appalachia that influenced country music traditions. The identification of “rednecks” has become a way to generally denote conservative white people dwelling in rural areas, despite how it was once used to silence leftist class politics.
Country music in its present form creates a white ethnic identity that circulates around false structural relations and conceptions of power that remain largely unchecked. The creation of the white identity as this conservative political project functions to perpetuate rampant anti-intellectualism and staunch loyalty to the nation. In Alan Jackson’s 2002 song commemorating 9/11, “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” he says:
“I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN
But I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope, and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love.”[14]
Jackson won Song of the Year at the CMA (Country Music Association) Awards for “Where Were You” and secured his first Grammy. The song posits a complicity with the simple life, runaway anti-intellectualism, and rampant isolationism. It denies engagement with geopolitics and interrogation of white imperialist ideology. Central to this are reiterations of the Christian ideals and the vague resulting notions of “faith” and “love,” as if those justify the US military intervention in the Middle East.
FRACTURING OF A NATIONAL IDENTITY
Pre-9/11 attempts by political actors to co-opt and sanitize the broad spectrum of country music were not entirely successful. Despite the historical recruitment of country music as a political project by right-wing conservatives, a parallel current of rural working-class radicalism survived alongside the politics of the red-blooded imperial American imagination.
Post-9/11 country music posits a different story. The general US response to 9/11 was structured as a method of retaliation to unprovoked acts of terrorism; in reality, the US had been involved in the Middle East for decades prior. The actions on 9/11 were motivated by military tensions in the Middle East, including the US’s continued support of Israel, as well as continued conflicts between the US and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Cold War.[15] A relatively mainstream political bipartisanship emerged, and there was a broad social conception that the US “reunited.” People responded with increased religious and spiritual dedication; church attendance skyrocketed and they started flying flags in front of their homes and voted for politicians that promised a vengeful response in the Middle East.[16] Then-president George W. Bush declared a global war on terror, promising a powerful response to “militant Islam.”[17] Bush stated that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were acts of war and the US would respond in kind; many expected Bush to “unleash the dogs of war,” as encouraged by pundit Bill O’Reilly and his guest Colonel David Hunt.[18]
In January 2003, the Bush administration instated the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS), a color-coded terrorist threat advisory scale that would alert civilians and various departments of government to the potential threat of further terrorist attacks. With each step up the color-coded scale, general paranoia and fear equally increased.[19] In the years following 9/11, the US effectively launched a modern global crusade against Muslims. The HSAS encouraged a culture of surveillance; on a daily basis, people who appeared to be Muslim or Middle Eastern were forced to account for their identity and prove their loyalty to the American political project, lest they be accused of terrorist collusion. Though the War on Terror and the general culture of surveillance was aimed at Muslims and Middle Eastern Americans in particular, this racialized violence was also generalized to anyone who vaguely resembled characteristics of Middle Easterners. State violence and structural surveillance were directed at anyone who fell within the racial categorization of Brown people.
This ideological surveillance and control seeped into all aspects of American politics and culture. Across the board, state powers and individuals alike silenced and scrutinized political dissent. Only six weeks after 9/11, Congress and the Bush Administration passed the Patriot Act, an overnight revision of US surveillance laws that expanded the government’s ability to track and surveil the American people. After little analysis or debate by Congress, the Patriot Act allowed for these largely unchecked powers in the name of national safety and terrorist prevention.[20]
Being an American patriot became intrinsically tied to a specific geopolitical discourse and US military action against Brown people, as the nation attempted to recuperate a shattered sense of safety and power in the imperial core. Questioning the US War on Terror was equated to terrorist-sympathizing and was thought to undermine the sentiment of American patriotism, which cannot be reconciled without understanding the vicious notion of American nationalism — often a poorly disguised wolf in sheep’s clothing. American nationalist sentiments are particularly dangerous with origins rooted in right-wing, neo-confederate ideologies. American nationalism specifically circulates around the imagination of the ideal white Christian hegemon. Virulent American nationalism weaponized notions of patriotism through acts of overt islamophobia. The mobilization of US militarism involved action against a specific racialized population, both domestically and globally. Recuperation of the national identity post-9/11 built upon the basis of violent white supremacy. Such notions are inherently xenophobic, circulating around perpetual attempts for racial and national purity necessitated by the constructed and protected white identity.
INDUSTRY BLACKLIST & IDENTITY RECUPERATION
In March 2003, Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks),[21] stated to their audience at a London nightclub:
“We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”[22]
The Chicks were amongst the earliest celebrities and politicians to speak out against Bush’s administration and the War on Terror. In response, the group was immediately blacklisted from the country music industry; radios refused to play their songs, they could land no advertisement deals — they quickly fell out of the public consciousness and faded into relative obscurity.
The Chicks were targeted, in particular, by Clear Channel — a corporate conglomerate whose main dealing was in gobbling up small local radio stations and establishing their own lines. Several stations owned by Clear Channel banned the Chicks and all their music, despite the fact that they were one of the largest groups in country music at the time, with their hit, “Traveling Soldier.” Clear Channel went as far as organizing pro-War on Terror, anti-Chicks rallies.[23] Clear Channel sent a clear message to other musicians in its not-so-secret institutional boycott: If you criticize President Bush and his War on Terror, your career will almost never recover.
This case with the Chicks represented a serious project of weeding out individuals that didn’t fit within this specific geopolitical discourse and imperialist imaginary. This practice of blacklisting sent the message that you could not represent the country industry as the so-called “national music” while criticizing it at the same time — and corporate record conglomerates would not even let you try. Nationalist corporations like Clear Channel — swallowing local radio stations whole and instituting nationwide bans on certain musicians — played an active role in the proliferation of imperialist propaganda and pro-war sentiments.
For the Chicks, their recovery did not come for nearly 20 years. After bearing the brunt of the industry blacklist, lost brand deals, and even death threats, the Chicks finally released another album, titled “Gaslighter,” in July 2020.[24] Their music video for their song “March March” involves imagery referencing past and present public protests for racial justice, police brutality, gun violence, climate change, and LGBTQ rights.[25] This industry blacklist is hardly a thing of the past, though it certainly does not act as overtly as it did immediately post-9/11. The Chicks are still largely written off as country artists because of their liberal politics and open criticism of many of the ideals held by the country music industry writ large.
For another example, we can look to Dolly Parton — yes, the Dolly Parton. She is often written off as a legitimate country artist due to her liberal politics and open support of the Black Lives Matter movement.[26] Of course, Dolly Parton has enough reputation — and genuinely killer music — that she’s largely able to survive, despite conservative push-back and general misogyny.
More recently, the controversy surrounding Lil Nas X’s 2018 song “Old Town Road” reveals the continuing project of racial and political segregation in the country music industry. Old Town Road debuted at number 19 on the country charts, but a week later, it was removed and only appeared on Billboard’s rap charts. Billboard released a statement saying:
“When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is musical composition. While ‘Old Town Road’ incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”[27]
Lil Nas X rose to prominence mainly on TikTok, where people made videos dancing to his song and spread its popularity. He has explained that he was inspired to write the song when he was living at home, feeling lonely, so he wrote a song about feeling like a lonely cowboy. He infused the song with rap elements into a subgenre that he calls “trap country.”[28] The removal of his song communicated the idea that country music has a purity that can be diluted, which traces to practices of segregation. Despite this, and the fact that Billboard claimed that “Old Town Road” did not embrace enough elements of today’s country music, the mixing of genres is hardly new. Lil Nas X’s creation of “trap country” was certainly innovative, but artists have been combining genres for decades, such as Taylor Swift’s pop country in the early stages of her career, to name one example.
Lil Nas X was one of the few Black artists to appear on the country music charts, and his subsequent removal sparked a huge conversation about the evaluation of artists of color in the country music industry. It raised a conversation about the treatment of Beyonce’s “Daddy Lessons,” from her 2016 album “Lemonade,” a song with undoubtedly country influences that never received recognition from the industry, likely because she is a Black woman.
For decades, country music housed parallel currents of right-wing conservative political projects and radical ideologies, always at risk of being snuffed out. Unfortunately, after 9/11, strong nationalist sentiments and pro-imperial ideology swept away country music’s radical roots and traditions. After “America reunited,” it was easy to defend the stifling of radical voices in the industry in the name of national safety and security. Country music became marked as the signature of right-wing conservative politics, pushing a narrative of staunch US nationalism and support of the imperial strategy.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
In recent years, more and more queer people and people of color have been creating space within the country music industry. Though many of them still struggle to receive recognition amongst the predominant fan base of country music — i.e., the white petite bourgeoisie — they often garner a large cult following. Lil Nas X has since released a fantastic album, “Montero,” a fusion of rap, RnB, and pop punk to add to his trap country singles and 2019 EP, 7. Orville Peck, a queer country artist, in his 2019 single “Queen of the Rodeo,” foregrounds the experiences of queer people of color in country-western culture, spotlighting the real roots of these cowboy traditions in the lifestyles of Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, and Mexicans across the West. Other artists of color such as Mickey Guyton and Brittany Howard, the former lead singer of the Alabama Shakes, have been working to create space for alternative, marginalized voices in the country genre. Guyton’s 2020 album “Remember Her Name” was inspired by the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, calling for recognition of the struggle against police violence. Howard released her first solo album, Jaime, in 2019. Her album is largely autobiographical, recounting her experiences as a queer Black woman in her impoverished Southern hometown. In one song, “Goat Head,” she recounts that when she was a child, someone put a severed goat head in her father’s car in an act of racial violence.
Similar to Lil Nas X, Peck, Guyton, and Howard have all experimented with genre mixing and innovation. In my opinion, this speaks to the real spirit of country music — unflinchingly political and not scared to step outside of the box. Country music was never really “pure,” and by striving for this racist and segregationist ideal, it denies its own history — it denies the influence of Black and Brown art forms like Delta Blues, Tejano, and Cajun and the radical class politics of such folk tradition. It is in the interest of white supremacist ideals to pretend that its art and culture exists independent of (and superior to) the traditions of other cultures. Country music bolsters the white identity and maintains hierarchical racial categories by gatekeeping what is and is not considered white.
Though I will always have a soft spot for country music, the industry is impossible to parse from its legacy of racial and political segregation. At this point, I don’t think it is feasible, nor is it moral, to separate the two, but that wasn’t really the purpose of this article, nor was discussing how radical country music actually is and how great it used to be — though I do genuinely hate Top 40 Country, nowadays. When I sat down to write this article, I was hoping to maybe reconcile my nostalgia and my distaste. But I’m finding that it just isn’t possible. Country music is just one, relatively microscopic, example of the operative state violence of American politics and the imperial project, and it means something when we tune in, whether we realize it or not. Of course, there is no such thing as avoiding participation in society, but it also means something for us to actively criticize the things we engage with.
I connected with country music as a child because it spoke of love and loss and loneliness, and it felt so innately human. It felt nostalgic, like homecoming. Years down the line, I return to this place and realize that home isn’t so simply categorized; it’s complicated, contradictory; it makes me write articles like this that take months to finish — and I’m still unsatisfied. I guess the point of all this is that culture doesn’t exist within a vacuum. Culture is always at risk of transformation through political projects and exercises of soft power —such culture wars and overt military action function in tandem. It’s important that we don’t look away.
Notes:
[1] Adam Johnson & Nima Shirazi, “Episode 119: How the Right Shaped Pop Country Music” from Citations Needed, September 23, 2020, https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-119-how-the-right-shaped-pop-country-music-97a9f2002302.
[2] Rebecca Rosen, “‘This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender,’” The Atlantic, January 28, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/this-machine-surrounds-hate-and-forces-it-to-surrender/283414/.
[3] Brian Merchant, “Can Woody Guthrie's Machine Still Kill Fascists?,” Vice, July 19, 2012, https://www.vice.com/en/article/788e4z/can-woody-guthrie-s-machine-still-kill-fascists.
[4] Megan Gibson, “Songs of Peace and Protest: 6 Essential Cuts From Pete Seeger,” Time, January 28, 2014, https://time.com/2315/pete-seeger-best-songs/.
[5] Arvind Dilawar, “The Radicalism of Woody Guthrie: An Interview With Will Kaufman,” Jacobin, August 26, 2020, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/woody-guthrie-socialism-radical-kaufman.
[6] In “The Bum Song,”McClintock praises the working-class experience and centers his narrative on the struggles of laborers, elevating the impoverished working-class experience to the level of art: “The Springtime has come and I'm just out of jail, Without any money, without any bail; Hallelujah, I'm a bum, Hallelujah, bum again.” Harry McClintock, “The Bum Song,” 1928, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CynLdVRN8ZM; Johnny Cash, “What is Truth?,” 1970, Columbia Records, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPhJHKwwR-s.
[7] Alex Ross, “Appalachian Autumn,” The New Yorker, August 20, 2007, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/27/appalachian-autumn.
[8] “Episode 119,” Citations Needed.
[9] Jack Smith, “How square dancing became a weapon of white supremacy against an anti-Semitic jazz dance conspiracy,” Mic, December 15, 2017, https://www.mic.com/articles/186892/how-square-dancing-became-a-weapon-of-white-supremacy-against-an-anti-semitic-jazz-dance-conspiracy.
[10] “Episode 119,” Citations Needed.
[11] Material relationships, i.e., class-based relationships, in the Marxist sense.
[12] Billy Currington, “Good Directions,” written by Luke Bryan & Rachel Thibodeau, 2006, Mercury Nashville, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myr5JxC4b_I.
[13] Rebecca Onion, “Where Does the Term Redneck Come From?,” Slate, December 11, 2019, https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/redneck-origin-definition-union-uprising-south.html.
[14] Alan Jackson, “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” 2001, Arista Nashville, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6rMcVNQbw.
[15] Emily Stewart, “The history of US intervention in Afghanistan, from the Cold War to 9/11,” Vox, August 21, 2021, https://www.vox.com/world/22634008/us-troops-afghanistan-cold-war-bush-bin-laden.
[16] An actual example of this unified-America imaginary: “We remember something else about Sept. 11: On that day and in those weeks after, we came together as Americans… Our war against terrorists has been relentless, and through four presidents, we have made it clear that if you attack the United States or Americans, we will fight back.” The author calls for Americans to unite again like we did after 9/11. Michael Armstrong, “In remembrance of 9-11, strive to reunite,” Homer News, September 8, 2021, https://www.homernews.com/opinion/in-remembrance-of-9-11-strive-to-reunite.
[17]Douglas Kellner, “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the ‘War on Terror’” in Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2007): 622–45, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27552281.
[18] Kellner, “Bushspeak.”
[19] Marvasti, Amir, “Being Middle Eastern American: Identity Negotiation in the Context of the War on Terror” in Symbolic Interaction 28, no. 4 (2005): 525–47, https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2005.28.4.525.
[20] “Surveillance Under The Usa/Patriot Act,” ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/other/surveillance-under-usapatriot-act.
[21] The group recently changed their name, in June 2022, to the Chicks, in order to distance themselves from the Confederate-era South. This is especially interesting because of the Chicks’ history with criticism of the US and the War on Terror. Anatasia Tsioulcas, “Dixie Chicks Change Band Name To The Chicks,” June 25, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/25/883328370/dixie-chicks-change-band-name-to-the-chicks#:~:text=The%20country%20trio%20Dixie%20Chicks,March%20March%2C%22%20on%20Thursday.
[22] Gabriel Rossman, “Elites, Masses, and Media Blacklists: The Dixie Chicks Controversy” in Social Forces 83, no. 1 (2004): 61–79, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3598233; Emily Yahr, “The Dixie Chicks release first new music in 14 years — a scathing anthem called ‘Gaslighter,’” Washington Post, March 4, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/03/04/dixie-chicks-new-song-gaslighter.
[23] “Episode 119,” Citations Needed.
[24] Yahr, “The Dixie Chicks release first new music.”
[25] Tsioulcas, “Dixie Chicks Change Band Name.”
[26] Camila Domonoske, 'Of Course Black Lives Matter,' Dolly Parton Tells Billboard,” NPR, August 14, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/08/14/902506007/of-course-black-lives-matter-dolly-parton-tells-billboard.
[27] Lauren Katz, “How “Old Town Road” revealed a deep divide within country music,” Vox, August 26, 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/8/23/20826730/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-vma-podcast.
[28] Katz, “How “Old Town Road” revealed a deep divide.”