Dixie Chicks Not Ready to Make Nice

If you lived in a cave for the past three years and listened to the newest disc from the Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way, you might suspect a few of the songs were about a good woman done wrong. She's defiant. Self-righteous. Bold.

Now, since it's a pretty sure thing you haven't been living in a cave, you can look at those same lyrics and see a different story. This album is the first released by the band since lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience in March 2003 (just before the start of the Iraq war), "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." The ensuing uproar led many country music radio stations to ban Dixie Chicks songs, and some fans even conducted album-smashing rallies. (One featured a giant combine running over a pile of Chicks CDs.)

Take That! ...
So, are the Chicks ready to get on with the business of being entertainers? Not likely. They chose as the album's lead single the song "Not Ready to Make Nice," and that pretty well sums up their attitude toward those who were critical of their 2003 foray into politics. This thumb-in-the-eye song reads, in part, "Forgive sounds good/Forget, I'm not sure I could/They say time heals everything but I'm still waiting/... I've paid a price and I'll keep paying/I'm not ready to make nice/I'm not ready to back down/I'm still mad as h---/... Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should/... It turned my whole world around and I kind of like it/I made my bed and I sleep like a baby").

They then go out of their way to insult the conservative politics—and presumably Christian beliefs—of those critics with the song "Lubbock or Leave It," a jab at Maines' hometown ("Dust bowl, Bible belt/Got more churches than trees/Raise me, praise me, couldn't save me/Couldn't keep me on my knees/... That'll be the day you see me back in this fool's paradise/Temptation's strong, salvation's gone/I'm on my way to hell's half-acre/How will I ever get to heaven now?").

... and That!
I'm not sure how the Chicks think this attitude will appeal to their longtime fans. But, in fact, they seem to have resigned themselves to having lost that core audience. The musical style on this album is noticeably different from previous efforts, with much less bluegrass and much more rockabilly. (Based on the CD's first-week sales of more than 500,000 units, a new breed of fans may not be a bad thing for the Dixie trio—certainly not from a financial perspective.)

As far as Maines is concerned, the drop-off at country radio was part of the plan all along, anyway. She was quoted in late January on ew.com, before the single "Not Ready to Make Nice" went to country radio, saying: "For me to be in country music to begin with was not who I was. ... I would be cheating myself ... to go back to something that I don't wholeheartedly believe in. So I'm pretty much done. They've shown their true colors. I like lots of country music, but as far as the industry and everything that happened, I couldn't want to be farther away from that."

Country radio has certainly noticed. Mark Evans, a program director for a Sacramento, Calif., station, explains his decision not to put the Chicks into his station's rotation. "When an artist says that they don't want to be a part of that industry, it made our decision a no-brainer. There are too many talented new artists dying to have a song played on country radio, so I'd rather give one of them a shot."

Heads and Tails on the Same Side of the Coin
All this sparring detracts from the fact that the Chicks are sometimes sensitive songwriters and gifted musicians. Title track Taking the Long Way, for instance, contains the hauntingly beautiful "Silent House," a loving dedication to a mother whose life is fading away to Alzheimer's disease ("These walls have eyes, rows of photographs and faces like mine/Who do we become without knowing where we started from?/... Every day that will pass you by/Every name that you won't recall/... I will carry it on and let you forget/And I'll remember the years when your mind was clear/How the laughter and life filled up this silent house").

Even the fairly traditional Dixie Chicks material about life on the road and love lost or never found gets reinvigorated here. Unfortunately, there are also occasional mild profanities along for the ride.

Which brings us back to the tough-as-nails Chicks we were looking at earlier. Time magazine recently described Maines as someone who was "born middle finger first." And it's not just because she likes to talk trash from the stage. For example, rather than try to explain their position after the initial dustup in 2003, the Chicks responded by appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly in the nude, their bodies covered with graffiti which all but screamed, "Shut Up," "Boycott," "Free Speech" and "Saddam's Angels."

It seems, now that I've had a chance to give their most recent CD a thorough going-over, that Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks are taking the long way toward maturity. In short, not much has changed between '03 and '06.