Spring Cleaning, Part.2: Hey, Remember These Chicks?

Ol' OBG continues his spring cleaning. And well, the Jimmy Eat World Bleed American project wasn't the only trilogy I never completed. When I initially posted Fly, the Thriller of mainstream country albums back in May 2024, the idea was that I'd post its two equally good follow-ups in the next weeks, maybe months. And then it took me ten months to post Home, and now it's been a year since I posted that one. What is this, James Cameron's Avatar movies? The album title turned out prophetically, Taking The Long Way indeed. But now that the spring cleaning crew (i.e. me) has found the Chicks' 2006 bounce back album, time to complete one of the best album trilogies by any artist or band, ever. 

"Forgive ? Sounds good. Forget? I'm not sure I could / they say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting..."

Of course, Taking The Long Way wasn't just an album, it was an event, for reasons both obvious and really, truly fucked up beyond repair. The backlash and blackballinng of the Chicks after Natalie Maines' off the cuff comments about George W. Bush at a London concert was some truly shameful shit. It looked already absolutely atrocious at the time, but it looks even worse in hindsight. Looking back on it, it's pretty clear that the outrage and outright banning of the Chicks Of course, Taking The Long Way wasn't just an album, it was an event, for reasins both obvious and really, truly fucked up beyond repair. The backlash and blackballinng of the Chicks after Natalie Maines' off the cuff comments about George W. Bush at a London concert was some truly shameful shit. It looked already absolutely atrocious at the time, but it looks even worse in hindsight Looking back on it, it's pretty clear that the outrage and outright banning of the Chicks had as much to do with misogyny as t did did with (fake, fabricated) ill-advised patriotism. The Chicks, but really mainly lead siner Natalie Maines was an opinionated youg woman. She had a mouth on her, something not everybody in the country music industry loved, but had to put up with considering the Chicks' drawing power for the five preceding years. So when there was an opportunity to shut Maines and her bandmates up and 'put these women into their place', boy, did they ever.

Well, let's talk about the music for a bit, shall we? Because while it's nice to become, somewhat against their own will, unlikely symbols of free speech, you still gotta have something to say. And the Chicks do.
This is their first album in which all three Chicks are credited on all songs, usually with a veteran quality songwriter to put these songs in shape: Semisonic's Dan Wilson, The Jayhawks' Gary Louris, Neil Finn, Mike Campbell, Sheryl Crow, and on the lasr track,  the previously issued charity single "I Hope" ,Keb' Mo. But it's clear tht the Chicks are in control pf this album - "six strong hands on the steering wheel' as Maines intones on the opener and title song.

That song, "Taking The Long Way" deliberately recalls (and references) Home's opener "Long Time Gone", functioning as a sort of sequel, thematizing the Chicks' choices along the way. "Wouldn't kiss all the asses they told me to / but I could never follow" after a quick breather with wonderful ballad "Easy Silence", Maines & Co. put the war paint on with "Not Ready To Make Nice", the single that details their ordeal and the defiant stance they took, or were forced to take. Wilson had come in with, as Maines recalls, "an idea that was some sort of concession, like a 'can't we all get along?' and I said nope, I can't say that, I can't do that". And so Wilson's idea, initially tentatively titled "United" became the Chicks' big, therapeutic fuck off to their detractors. You don't need to know the back story to feel the song's power, but it helps if you do.

Whether the song is an acknowledgment of their new-found notoriety like "Everybody Knows" or a simple old-fashioned barn burner like "Lubbock Or Leave It",  the Chicks are in control throughout the 14 track album, which runs maybe two tracks too long, but is objectively the third killer album in a row. It won four Grammies in what was widely considered a political gesture, of the pop world embracing the Chicks after the country world burned them so badly. But it deserves those Grammies, including song of the year for "Not Ready To Make Nice", and I say that as someone who, like any real music fan, is highly suspicious of these folks and their decision-making.

Sadly, things wouldn't turn out okay, despite the brave faces the Chicks put on here. They couldn' get over it and they are still waiting on full healing. So the band went on hiatus for a decade. Maines especially was so disgusted by the way the country music scene had treated her that she made a rock'n' roll solo album far away from Nashville in 2013, otherwise raising her family. The remaining Chicks, sisters Emily and Marti meanwhile formed acoustic country-bluegrass  duo Court Yard Hounds. Gaslighter, the Chicks' 2020 comeback album, heavily influenced by Maines' bitter divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar, is a pretty good pop album, though not a patch on the Chicks' trilogy from 1998 to 2006. 

The real loss, one could argue, is to mainstream country music, which is a lot poorer without the Chicks in it. With Home they had pushed a stealth trad country/progressive bluegrass album over into the mainstream, and while that probably wasn't sustainable, it showed an interest in country roots that have been waxed  over by barely disguised stadium rock and soft pop with a steel guitar flourish, in a scene subsequently dominated by boorish country bros. The MAGA-fication of the Nashville country scene was a bit hesitant during the first term of Donny the Disgraceful, but - like its leader - has been less shameless in the last years. If my reaction at the time was 'Fuck the Nasgville music complex and their minions', I can't say that my opinion has changed positively in the meantime...

Writing about this album as another dubiously timed and even more dubiously planned US-started war rages reminds us how history can repeat itself, and how we'll always need people who are not ready to make nice - in the entertainment industry, and everywhere else., especially as a crackdown on dissident voices is in full effect. In the meantime, play Taking The Long Way, enjoy some top notch country rock and keep sane, everybody...

From The Record Shelf: Let some Chicks take you Home...

Well, that escalated quickly. Or, you know, it didn't. When I posted the Dixie Chicks' Fly back in *checks notes* May 2024 (?!?), the idea was to in the following weeks and months to their next two albums as the trio of albums the Chicks started with Fly are all great. Yeah, you read that right, weeks and months. Not, you know, years apart. But as usual, I started to post a bunch of other cool stuff and then kind of forgot about the Chicks. But no more! Maybe because Easter is coming up? Nope, that's not it, though. What really brought me back Home is the recent post about Ron Sexsmith's fabulous Cobblestone Runway album. Thinking its slight electronic embellishment sheen made me think of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Beck's Sea Change, and wouldn't you know it, they all came out the same year. You know which great album also came out in 2002? That's right, the Dixie Chicks' Home which has some claim to be the Chicks' best album. 

About twenty years ago I was hanging out on the Warren Zevon Bulletin Board, and regularly getting into fights - internet fights, thus the stupidest fights imaginable - with that one guy. I've forgotten his name, but I distincly remember him commenting when someone posted a music magazines - probably Rolling Stone - Top 250 albums of, uh, the laf-decade maybe? "If they are so obtuse as to not list Home, their list is coompletely worthless" opined that dude, and while his name might be lost to the fog of memory, his very personal and insistent use of the word obtuse. So, WZBB internet rando from around 2005 - you were wrong about pretty much everything else, but you were right about Home being a great album! 

Home saw the Chicks leaning further into the things that worked so well on Fly. That album introduced some Celtic influences, so Home has an entire jig (or reel?) called "Lil' Jack Slade" that is, uh, Irish bluegrass (?!?) and bring out the uillean pipes and tin whistle for "More Love". Bluegrass is actually a pretty constant presence on the album, and listening back to it it's pretty amazing how bluegrass Home  really is - for a projected megaseller. There's two reasons for this: One is that the Dixie Chicks' confidence level was through the roof, the other was the unprecedented success of the old-timey sounds of the O Brother Where Art Though? soundtrack in between Fly and this album. 

The Chicks still don't trust themselves completely as songwriters, though we have three band songs here, up from one of Wide Open Spaces and but they picked top notch songs from top notch writers, including two from Patty Griffin, Stevie Nicks' old Fleetwood Mac warhorse "Landslide"the beautiful "A Home" by Maia & randy Sharp, a great storytelling song from Bruce Robison ("Travelin' Soldier"), the rollicking opening number "Long Time Gone" penned by Darrel Scott, which has a couple of great lines, poking modern country radio: "They sound tired, but they don't sound Haggard, they got money, but they don't have Cash, they got Junior, but they don't have Hank".   

Of course, country radio would soon poke back, and hard. Natalie Maines' critical comments about George W. Bush and the Iraq warmongering of his administration(boy, were we innocent babes in the woods when we thought that guy was the worst president ever and you couldn't stoop lower than that doof...welp...) saw country radio drop the Chicks like a bad habit, making fourth single "Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)" their lowest charting single ever and have "Sitting On Top Of The World", one of the two Griffith numbers, miss the charts entirely. The Chicks and country radio would never be close again.  

History would of course be on the Chicks' side, and on Home's which remains a classic. So, let these chicks take you home for some very fine bluegrass-flavored country music...

And just for funzies, here's my top ten albums from 2002:

1. Patty Griffin – 1,000 Kisses

2. Dixie Chicks – Home

3. Ron Sexsmith – Cobblestone Runway

4. Beck – Sea Change

5. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

6. Counting Crows – Hard Candy

7. Dan Brodie – Empty Arms, Broken Hearts

8. Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band – The Rising

9. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head

10. Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around

From The Record Shelf: The Dixie Chicks take flight

I came to the Dixie Chicks the wrong way. Or probably exactly the right way, as I bought Home after hearing good things about it and it is their best album. I then immediately picked up the follow-up Taking The Long Way which was also very good and then some time later Fly, the One Buck Record of the day. Which meant that I came to their breakthrough Wide Open Spaces, the first album of the classic three lady line up, last. I can see why Wide Open Spaces sold a ton and gave the new-look Chicks an immediate hit. But hearing it after the three superior follow-ups means that its flaws are immediately evident. It's a very mainstream country record that also acknowledges the band's past as a bluegrass outfit, but it is above all a safe album, a polite album, full of songs by corporate songwriters. And when they do pick covers by folks like J.D. Souther and Maria McKee, they're very safe choices. The whole album drowns in sentimental ballads, while the uptempo, bluegrass songs feel too studied to really convince. Wide Open Spaces was an excellent proof of talent, but it didn't really have much personality. 

The same thing can't be said about Fly. Whatever their first album as a trio lacked in that department, Fly makes up for in no time. What really comes out on this album is the band's humor, led on by the impish Natalie Maines. Even before the whole Bush comments scandal, the backlash against the band and Maines' break with the country community which led to their long hiatus, you can see why things could and would end badly with the most conservative contingent of their audience. 

Take "Sin Wagon", one of the uptempo numbers here and a highlight of Fly. It's a song all about fucking, and not that shy about it either. Nathalie Maines takes gleeful pleasure in pointing that out: "That's right, I said mattress dancing..." in case a listener didn't catch her drift the first time. And if that didn't piss some good folks in the bible belt off, the little musical reprise of old gospel standard "I'll Fly Away" right into "on the sin wagon" might've done it. Another really fun number is "Goodbye Earl", written by old folkie turned corporate songwriter Dennis Linde, a great story-song with a touch of black humour that fits right into Maines vocal style and delivery. It also talks about murdering an abusive husband, so, like"Sin Wagon", it was banned from some of the more conservative country stations. A harbinger of things to come. 

One thing that I didn't know until recently because in my neck of the woods American country music was neither on the radio nor a big seller, but Fly was obviously the Born In The U.S.A. of country music, with the band releasing a whooping eigth out of thirteen tracks over the span of more than two years. That's an impressive feat, but what's more impressive is the high quality throughout the album. The up tempo numbers have more bite and conviction and the ballads are less soggy. Another encouraging sign: After a single self-penned song on Wide Open Spaces, the band wrote or co-wrote five of the tracks here, showing that they were slowly coming into their own creatively and were ready to take more control of their music. 

The only flaw of the damn thing? The ugly as fuck album cover. The Chicks hid all the good stuff in the booklet, all portraits centered on different meanings of the album title. I took the (arguably) most provocative one (now that one might've gotten them thrown out of Walmart), because it nicely captures the Chicks' new attitude. 

Hop on board if you can, hop on the sin wagon if you must, but make sure you'll fly...