CBS4 Denver reports on the latest impact area for Colorado’s foremost controversy-seeking missile, Rep. Lauren Boebert–this time leaping into the debate over a new video from conservative country music star Jason Aldean shot in front of a Tennessee courthouse with, to say the least, a problematic history.
Colorado’s Republican congresswoman recently joined Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem in defending pop-country singer and guitarist Jason Aldean, while criticizing what she called censorship over his recent song “Try That in a Small Town.”
The music video for Aldean’s song was pulled from CMT this week over some of its themes and facts surrounding the video itself. The song was released in May, but according to Billboard, the accompanying video wasn’t released until July 14 and had been in heavy rotation through Sunday before it was pulled on Monday.
“The iTunes charts have spoken – Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That In A Small Town’ is number one,” Boebert tweeted to her 2.6 million followers Wednesday. “Whenever they try and censor us, we only go stronger. Time for CMT to get the Bud Light treatment.”
And Tuesday, she tweeted that Aldean, “put everything that is on our minds to music. Everyone needs to listen to this song and just reflect on how far this great nation has fallen — but realize that WE THE PEOPLE can get it all back and MORE!” [Pols emphasis]
NBC News takes a look at the controversy underlying both the lyrics of Aldean’s song and the location for the video shoot:
Released on YouTube on Friday, the video for the song, “Try That in a Small Town,” features Aldean and his band performing in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, the same site where a Black teenager was lynched in 1927.
Henry Choate, 18, was accused of assaulting a white 16-year-old girl. He was jailed, but a mob of hundreds of white people kidnapped him from his cell. He was tied to the back of a car and dragged across town, and eventually hanged in front of the Maury County Courthouse.
Choate was one of at least 20 Black men in Maury County to be lynched or kidnapped and presumably killed by the KKK or white mobs, according to local historian Elizabeth Queener.
And although it’s true that the word “lynch” does not appear in the song’s lyrics,
Aldean’s video also includes scenes that seem to feature footage of Black Lives Matter protests, as Aldean sings lyrics such as “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face/ Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, ya think you’re tough.”
And invites the listener to “try that in a small town.”
To summarize, we have a song that celebrates vigilante justice, shot just by coincidence we’re to believe in front of the site of an infamous historical lynching. Despite invoking disrespect toward cops the song is plainly not about police maintaining law and order, it’s about “good old boys” who dare you to see “how far you get down the road” if you commit various misdeeds like burning a flag. Put this all together and you don’t come to an ambiguous conclusion about this song’s message.
This is the history Lauren Boebert wants to “get back and MORE?”
We can’t speak for Maury County Tennessee, but Colorado towns of all sizes will take a hard pass.
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When Lauren Boebert tries that in a small town she screams about all her friends at Fox News.
MAGAts writing songs about attacking other Americans… of course she had to put her $.02 in. I’m so sick of these clowns.
They talk about disrespecting police?? Who do they think is going to come after them for attacking other citizens? Who was attacking police in DC?
Marx described the "idiocy of rural life" well, but he could never have imagined the idiot of rural life Lauren Bobert is.
Does "Time for CMT to get the Bud Light treatment." mean that Boebert wants governments to take legal action against CMT the way DeSantis is attempting to take action against AB InBev? Cuz that would be so deeply ironic and stupid that it hurts: "US Representative wants government to censor CMT for their 'censorship'
Because a music video shot in Maury County, Tennessee is probably foremost on the minds of most CD-3 unaffiliated voters.
I’m guessing it’s taking a LOT of Kleenex’s for you-know-who. It’s been quite a week for BoBo.
Jason Aldean warns black joggers not to "try that in a small town" or they will end up like Ahmad Aubery.
Can you point to that in the lyrics or video, Thorntonite? Because it may be implied via visuals, but I didn’t see it in video or lyrics. (below)
I agree that it was tone-deaf ( at least) to stage this video at a lynching site.
All of the “quiet, good small town people” shown in the video are apparently white, and about half of the protesters and criminals are apparently people of color.
The most obvious recent examples of folks spitting on and fighting cops are Trump’s January 6 mob, which presumably included many of these small town, fine, quiet white people. These people are still being tried and going to jail. Yet, somehow, January 6 video wasn’t included in the montage.
It would have been a much more powerful song that could actually bring people together if the visuals had also included January 6 terrorists.
Lyrics to “Try that in a small town”, via Musicmatch
Try That In A Small Town
Song by Jason Aldean
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you’re tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they’re gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right
If you’re looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town
Sort of relevant to note that Aldean didn't write the song. From tasteofcountry.com:
No defense intended for Aldean. He maybe could have nixed singing it if he's not too controlled by management or contractual stuff.
Ultimately, I'd say the lyrics are both sort of creepy and insensitive, but quite generic in a sense that it takes tropes about what happens in the dirty inner city and makes it seem like good ol' grandpa's gun is the Savior preventing "that" from happening in said small town. Even though all kinds of stuff happens in small towns.
The violent culture of the racist people and institutions that are now the base of the Republican party , is blossoming.
A thread of “problem solving through ass-kicking” runs through so much of our society, it has become the MO for everything from pro football to Liam Neeson movies. I am fascinated and yet appalled that “professional wrestling” is wrongly being incorporated into the world of actual sport by the media…and MAGAworld. The point of sport is to decide an outcome through competition, not through contract negotiation.
The Magats are fired up and ready to fight. Their fervor continues to be stoked by the exhortations of their pastor, their sheriff, and the banker who holds the note on their farm. The non-stop propaganda saturates their consciousness with fear and a determination to be the good Christian soldier. They have anointed FDFQ as their new Christ.
It would be rare to find a Trump supporter who can articulate an actual reason for their hate. Ask Jordan Klepperer about that.
I am sad to see the situation we presently face. Republicans continue, in their complete subservience to the Christian evangelical church lobby, to support a man who, in his bellicosity will, I believe, have his enemies killed.
He is continuing to exhort his mob to violence. Some of them are responding.
I’m no professional historian, but I think we can trace a major turning point in musical glorification of ass-kicking back to Charlie Daniels’ “In America,” from 1980:
Pittsburgh’s not a small town, but notice Daniels didn’t sing about the Philadelphia Eagles from the same state even though Philly sports fans are known to be not so polite either.
Fast forward to 2009, and you’ve got Toby Keith’s:
Personally, I prefer "Small Town," by John Mellencamp.
…or “My Town” by Montgomery Gentry
I’m with you, Banger, and Michael. Or maybe Springsteen’s “My Hometown”.
Try that small town shit in some US cities, and you'll see a whole bunch of good ol boys hightailing it back to their cloistered tunnel-vision towns
A very good point.
^^^ THIS ^^^![yes yes](https://www.coloradopols.com/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/thumbs_up.png)
Spaceman for the win.
That tunnel-vision ignoring of the obvious is it's own special kind of ignorance: If small towns were all that wonderful, there wouldn't be big towns and cities.
Or so many young people doing whatever they can to get out of them.
How you gonna’ keep ’em down at the bowling alley with nothing but bullets and a career serving tainted sliders??!
If he were alive they could ask Matthew Shepard about small town life.
I just got a junk email titled "The Radical Left is Coming After Jason Aldean!"
Not worth reading, but thought y'all might want to know you've blown your cover…
Swear to god, we’re not gonna’ rest until we have a tragically woke Jason Aldean onstage belting out nothing but Broadway show tunes in fuchsia leather asschaps and chartreuse stiletto heel boots!
What happens in a small to some man who exposes himself to teenage girls?
Asking for a granny . . .
Well, he gets himself hitched! But there is definitely a country song in that story and what followed, if some songwriting team wants to tackle it.
How do those songs go?
Man loses job, house, wife, pick-up truck, and dog. In that order of importance.
Guessing in this case it might be in order: wife > job, then whatever else. Due to loss of high-level connections, maybe.
(paraphrased) You can steal my pick-up truck; you can take my wife; you can beat up my kids…… But don't you dare touch my dog.
You forgot mama, getting drunk, the prison, and the rain. That’s OK, though….David Allan Coe’s got ya covered.
The entire song is built on the lie that "somebody" is coming to take grandpa's shotgun. If they had used AK-15 then there might be some merit but that wouldn't have fit their narrative of grievance and unjust restriction of their rights.
Maybe by the time grandpa is in his late 80's with macular degeneration, someone should take away his shotgun.