Country Music
American country music contains numerous images of "traditional" life, family life, religious life, as well as patriotic themes. Songs such as Merle Haggard's "The Fightin' Side of Me", and "Okie from Muskogee" have been perceived as patriotic songs which contain an "us versus them" mentality directed at the counterculture "hippies" and the anti-war crowd, though these were actually misconceptions by listeners who failed to understand their satirical nature. In more recent years, Haggard has become more openly critical of "the establishment", and even disagreed with the Iraq War. Other country musicians, such as Charlie Daniels, openly supported George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and conservative politics in general. When Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, made negative comments about George W. Bush and publicly spoke out against the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, boycotts by country music radio stations and death threats hindered the band's continued success. In 2006, with Maines still acting as lead singer, the Dixie Chicks released a "comeback" album, Taking the Long Way. The album subsequently won five Grammys.
Read more about this topic: Music And Politics
Famous quotes containing the words country and/or music:
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“How little it takes to make us happy! The sound of a bagpipe.—Without music life would be a mistake. The German even imagines God as singing songs.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)