Shut Up and Sing

Prior to seeing this movie, I had heard all of one song by the Dixie Chicks (“Travelin’ Soldier,” which is excellent) and knew little about the band apart from what lead singer Natalie Maines had said about President Bush during a concert in London in 2003, just before the war in Iraq started. I don’t recall exactly what I thought when I heard about what she had said, nor exactly what my feelings on the war were at that time. I recall being surprised to hear that a country singer had spoken out against Bush in that way, and I bought the Entertainment Weekly that had them on the cover with mock-up epithets written on their naked bodies; I don’t know exactly where this episode falls in my declining opinion of President Bush, but suspect that the backlash against Maines probably helped my thinking along in that regard.

In the time since her comment, of course, much has changed - “Travelin’ Soldier” was still the only bit of their music I had heard before I saw the movie - but pretty much everything else is light years from the way it was in 2003 before the war started. I recall thinking when the whole thing began that the Dixie Chicks were done, that that one tiny remark had cost them their careers and that it would be state fairs they would be playing for the rest of their lives, if they were lucky.

Luckily, though - for me, for music, for the ladies themselves, of course - the remark did not have that effect. What happened instead was that they regrouped, took stock of where they were in their personal and professional lives, and then dug their heels in and started working on a new record. A number of the songs from that record are featured throughout the film, in various stages of development and performance.

But they are not the same band - as though it could have been expected that they would come out the other side unchanged by what had happened. I suspect that they are a better band, though since I don’t know any of their previous music cannot rightly say - although the songs from the new record are very strong, lyrically and musically.

I suspect that they have also changed the face of country music - or perhaps just split the fan base down the middle - on one side, the mountain folk whose knuckles drag on the ground when they walk and who still think (insofar as they are able) that Dubya is doing a heckuvva job; and on the other, a more sophisticated group of people who actually cared more about the music than what Natalie Maines said on stage, and who still care more about the music now.

I get the sense from the movie that they have come to terms with the fact that they have irrevocably lost their fan base in the Ozarks - at one point, Maines, who attends a startling number of meetings positioned horizontally on a couch, is saying “maybe” as her response to everything her manager is saying to her about how the band will be back in two years, in 2005, with a new record, new tour, etc. After hearing her answer him with “maybe” going on half a dozen times, he asks, timidly, if they are, in fact, going to do another record.

Her answer is that it may not be a country record, and he exclaims that that is fine, almost as though he had half-assumed that the band would not record another country record - and as though he could not have cared less what kind of record it was, so long as there was one. (The record is a country record, but there are other things in there - put an ear to it, and you can hear...could it be...power chords? Yep. There are power chords in there, and not a little hint of the blues and hard rock in Natalie’s voice.)

Because for Natalie Maines, everything the band has done, since that night in London, in terms not only of plain surviving, but also of reclaiming their place in the upper echelon not just of country music, but of all music - is personal. Not personal in the sense that she feels sorry for herself for what she said - far from it - but personal in the sense that she was simply not going to allow everything the band had accomplished to be taken away from them because of the ignorance of a handful of country radio program directors and a legion of confederate hilljacks who don’t have enough active brain cells to understand anything that isn’t spoon-fed to them by ultra-conservative right-wing sociopaths like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, President Bush, and Darth Cheney.

I don’t like country music very much, but I like the Dixie Chicks, even though all I have heard is “Travelin’ Soldier” and the stuff from the movie. All three are extremely gifted musicians and singers - Martie Maguire could play a fiddle blindfolded, Natalie Maines (whom I suspect of having perfect pitch) sings with a power and intensity I have rarely experienced while listening to music (a lot of people sing with power and intensity, but most sacrfice tone quality in doing so - people like Zach De La Rocha, Chris Cornell, and James Hetfield; some of those who don’t sacrifice tone quality in pursuit of power and intensity include Dolores O’Riordan, Ed Vedder, and Geddy Lee; but there is one singer who could, in his prime, howl with the best of them and yet always sound as crystal clear as the best ride cymbal in the world - and that singer is Robert Plant.), and the three-part harmonies are just haunting - use caution whence you steer your ship, lest you draw nigh upon these sirens unawares.

The Dixie Chicks did not just survive - they thrived. Their new record went #1 on Billboard’s Hot 200 without the benefit of any significant radio airplay, a feat no other country act could ever hope to achieve, and one which few other bands of any genre could ever hope to achieve. I can’t remember the last time the credits rolled and I felt more excited by the movie I had just seen.

I had planned to spend tomorrow (that would be Friday, for those who keep normal hours) taking a solo trip to Bloomington - Amy is off to a conference in Nashville, Tennessee, this weekend - and, after seeing Shut Up And Sing, listening to the new Dixie Chicks record down and back; but it seems that our furnace has quit working, so I am finishing up this blog post while my thermostat sits at a cool 59º, and will have to, instead of going to Bloomington, call the home warranty people in the morning and have them come check out my furnace. After that, though, first stop is for the new record. If a trip to Bloomington is still in the cards at that point, smashing; if not, it won’t matter, as long as healthy chunks of tomorrow are spent listening to Taking The Long Way.