We need songs about virtue, not violence.
We need songs about virtue, not violence.
T he country singer Jason Aldean has a No. 1 hit in his “Try That in a Small Town.” It’s made news because the Country Music Channel won’t play the video because of its threatening nature. Aldean is a Trump fan, so the controversy has brought out predictable Right-vs.-Left defenses and condemnations. But it’s not that simple. It’s an opportunity to look at 1985 vs. 2023 and take some lessons from the relatively recent past.
In 1985, John Mellencamp sang about small towns: “Educated in a small town, / Taught to fear of Jesus in a small town, / Used to daydream in that small town, / Another boring romantic, that’s me.” He sang about friendship and family and marriage — about roots. These are treasures, and all the people who are suffering under what had been called a pandemic of loneliness need to be introduced to as many good things as possible in their lives. Too many people today think these things are unattainable and don’t even know how to be a hopeless romantic — and it’s killing them.
Fast forward to now. Jason Aldean is singing about the violence that is happening in urban America. It’s real. I try to at least talk with people begging on the streets. It’s become harder. There is a harder edge of anger I’ve encountered. During Covid, men would grab me for simply giving them the time of day, getting the wrong idea from a “Hello.” Now, conversations often end with yelling when money is not transferred. Mental illness accounts for some of it. But anger and desperation, too. Aldean captures some of what is undeniably going on: “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.”
And then there is the refrain: “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.”
Aldean at another point in the song talks about a gun his grandfather gave him. Part of the reason some conservatives are defending the song is that there is plenty of other music that is violent that doesn’t get pulled by anyone. The healthy answer isn’t to add more anger and violence. Some of us are old enough to remember former second lady Tipper Gore, a Democrat, and former secretary of education William J. Bennett, a Republican, warning us about sex and violence in music and video games. They were right. And it’s only gotten worse since then. No small part of the reason that young people find themselves getting abortions is that the music they listen to insists that aggressive sexuality is the only way to have a relationship with someone of the oppositive sex. Then if they are not having sex, TikTok videos tell them the solution to their normal middle-school awkwardness is puberty blockers and surgery. Our culture adds cruelty to life that is already challenging.
There’s something remarkably and alarmingly cynical to responding to poison with more poison — which is what Aldean is doing. Mellencamp sang: “No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from. / I cannot forget the people who love me. / Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town, / And people let me be just what I want to be.” There’s a gratitude about that. It leaves people better off for hearing it.
Compare that to Aldean explaining that small towns are “Full of good ol/ boys, raised up right. / If you’re looking for a fight / 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.” Sorry, if you were raised right, you owe the culture art that is beautiful and virtuous. You are more likely to walk away from a song like that angry and self-righteous than inspired and hopeful.
Again, Aldean is right that we have our challenges. I’ve watched more robberies in stores in the past year than in my entire life. But one of the other things I’ve seen is the obvious sadness and hopelessness that people feel.
The day after Donald Trump was elected president, women at the women’s abortion march on Fifth Avenue had handwritten signs that read “#sad.” They couldn’t even be more creative than that, so forlorn were their hearts. Another day years later, a woman protested an event I was moderating. She swore at a Catholic nun who simply thanked her for being there and listening to what we had to say. She swore at me, too, and the emptiness in her eyes, I would hope, would beg Jason Aldean to write something that would bring some joy to her life. Otherwise, she is probably left with the impression that anyone who is of a more conservative point of view hates her. I don’t hate her. My Sister of Life friend doesn’t hate her. We want her to know that her life has value. Part of the reason abortion is so prevalent in America is that people don’t know what a gift their own lives are. That’s why we don’t need songs about pulling out guns to take care of problems that come from a deficit of love.
I’m pretty sure John Mellencamp and I have different politics. Indeed, googling, I see that he describes himself as a socialist. But I am grateful to that socialist for inserting some gratitude into our culture in an aspirational way. And I hope that Republican Aldean in future songs can find himself encouraging people toward the good, rather than adding anger and violence, which are already a plague of our time.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.