<\/p>\n
Country star Zach Bryan is saying that an excerpt from a forthcoming song has been misunderstood, resulting in backlash that has been described<\/a> as a \u201cMAGA meltdown.\u201d<\/p>\n The clip from Bryan\u2019s song \u201cBad News\u201d was posted on Instagram Oct. 3, just days after the NFL set off a cultural maelstrom with the announcement that the performer who goes by the name Bad Bunny<\/a> would headline the Super Bowl halftime show.<\/p>\n So it should have surprised exactly no one that a social media post captioned \u201cthe fading of the red white and blue\u201d \u2014 and a song that uses an expletive to describe police officers \u2014 was not going to land well with people who support law enforcement and believe that America is currently in a period of renaissance and revival.<\/p>\n Throw in the line \u201cICE is going to come bust down your door\u201d and it\u2019s pretty much guaranteed these people will talk about you being \u201cBud Lighted<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But country music has been here before.<\/p>\n While rock music is known for its bad boys, country music is known for its rebels. Bryan, a 29-year-old Navy veteran who enlisted at age 17, stands just outside the perimeter of what would be considered mainstream country, artists like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs, George Strait and Randy Travis<\/a>.<\/p>\n His songs are about more than Dwight Yoakam\u2019s \u201cguitars, Cadillacs and hillbilly music.\u201d Three years ago, for example, Bryan addressed the issue of high ticket prices with the release of an album<\/a> called \u201cAll My Homies Hate Ticketmaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking on Ticketmaster and going after ICE are two different things, however, as Bryan learned this week. For one thing, ICE commentary gets the attention of the White House.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Zach Bryan wants to Open The Gates to criminal illegal aliens and has Condemned heroic ICE officers, Something in the Orange tells me a majority of Americans disagree with him and support President Trump\u2019s great American Revival. Godspeed, Zach!\u201d a White House spokesperson said in a statement, per Newsweek<\/a>.<\/p>\n Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has also weighed in, saying that the song is \u201ccompletely disrespectful\u201d to law enforcement and that she is glad she hadn\u2019t spent any money on Bryan\u2019s music.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to see how Bryan and his team didn\u2019t see this reaction coming, especially after the fallout from the Bad Bunny announcement.<\/p>\n But in comments this week, Bryan seemed surprised and dismayed by the backlash and blamed social media. He also said that people were misinterpreting an excerpt of the song, which has yet to be released.<\/p>\n \u201cThis song is about how much I love this country and everyone in it more than anything. When you hear the rest of the song, you will understand the full context that hits on both sides of the aisle. Everyone using this now as a weapon is only proving how devastatingly divided we all are. We need to find our way back,\u201d he wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n He added the reaction \u201cmakes me not only embarrassed but kind of scared. Left wing or right wing we\u2019re all one bird and American. To be clear I\u2019m on neither of these radical sides.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear why Bryan wouldn\u2019t just release the song now if it would clarify matters, given that he\u2019s suffering the same kind of backlash that the Dixie Chicks (now The Chicks) did when Natalie Maines said on a London stage in 2003, \u201cWe do not want this war, this violence, and we\u2019re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n Maines later said that the remark was \u201cmade in frustration\u201d and apologized to President George W. Bush, but the damage was done: fans were burning CDs and concert tickets and radio stations were pulling the group from their playlists. Other country artists piled on<\/a>: Toby Keith paired a photo of Maines next to one of Saddam Hussein at a concert. Taylor Swift later told The Guardian<\/a>, \u201cNo. 1 thing they drill into you as a country artist is \u2026\u2018Don\u2019t be like the Dixie Chicks!\u2019”<\/p>\n The trio dropped the \u201cDixie\u201d from their name in 2020 and performed the National Anthem at the Democratic National Convention that year and in 2024. Maines has said that she is glad that the controversy allowed them to escape the \u201cbox of country music, which we never wanted to be in and never felt like that\u2019s who we were.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like, \u2018Oh, country music, please take us back.\u2019 It was middle fingers: \u2018Bye!\u2019\u201d she told<\/a> the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n Controversy has not been limited to Democrats. Country superstar Hank Williams Jr. talked politics<\/a> on \u201cFox and Friends\u201d and saw his song \u201cAll My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight\u201d pulled from NFL broadcasts \u2014 twice.<\/p>\n Garth Brooks has flirted with alienating his base multiple times, including with his 1992 song \u201cWe Shall Be Free,\u201d which was described as too \u201csocially conscious<\/a>\u201d for many country music stations. Brooks also performed at Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration in 2021, but said the appearance was \u201cnot a political statement, (but) a statement of unity.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, after the performance, people laughed as he rushed around greeting both Republican and Democrats on the stage.<\/p>\n For the most part, though, country artists have been able to stay on good terms with their base by leaving politics out of their songs even if they are baldly political in their private lives. Taylor Swift, who started out as a country singer, is one example; Willie Nelson, another.<\/p>\nWhy the Dixie Chicks dropped \u2018Dixie\u2019<\/h3>\n
Garth Brooks and Hank Williams Jr.<\/h3>\n