Hope the holiday season is treating you all well.  We’ll be back at full strength here at LCF beginning in the New Year!

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

They may have stopped getting love from the CMA since “the incident”, but the Grammys seem unfazed by the Chicks’ politics, as Taking the Long Way leads the Dixie Chicks to five Grammy nominations, their most ever in one year.

Taking the Long Way is the third consecutive Chicks album to be nominated for Album of the Year, a feat that no country act has ever achieved before. They’re also nominated for the first time in the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories for “Not Ready to Make Nice”.

In the country categories, where the Chicks have won all eight of their Grammys to date, Taking the Long Way is their fourth straight record to get a nod for Best Country Album; they’ve won the category each time so far. “Not Ready To Make Nice” also gets a nod for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, their sixth nomination in that category, which they’ve won four times.

Left-leaning country acts make a few more appearances on the ballot, with Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Marty Stuart, Matraca Berg and Linda Ronstadt receiving nominations in the country and folk categories.

Our troops in Iraq will be getting a much deserved treat later this month as the USO’s “Hope and Freedom Tour” returns to American bases in the troubled country. The tour has a line-up any Liberal Country Fan would love:

• Al Franken: The well-known Air America talk radio host and my personal favorite potential senate candidate for my personal favorite state, Minnesota.
• Darryl Worley: Thanks to his 2003 single, “Have You Forgotten?”, Darryl Worley is an anti-Dixie Chick of sorts. He’s put out some great music, however, and his new single, “I Just Came Back From A War”, will soon be featured in a Liberal Song Spotlight.
• Mark Wills: The country singer made famous by his song “19 Something” and by George Bush playing his guitar while people were dying in New Orleans.

Also on the tour are the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (of course), Keni Thomas, and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth Preston.

The USO deserves much credit for putting together a politically balanced and entertaining show. The headliners have done previous USO tours together, and a side benefit has been that these three political opposites have become friends. So much for that culture war…

Even though feminism has become an easy target for legions of right-wing media personalities, it seems feminist politics have been finding a whole new set of voices in country music. Each of these voices has a novel take on a movement that, in my opinion, needs to be revitalized for the new generation of young women. Gretchen Wilson has led the way with “Redneck Woman” and a fascinating new book (about which I’ll be writing more soon), but Faith Hill is doing her part with her new single, “Stealing Kisses”. The song has been a house favorite here at Liberal Country Fan for months, but now that it has been released as a single, the song is finally getting the attention it deserves.

The premise of the Lori McKenna-penned song is old, but highly relevant to modern lifestyles: an idealistic and in-love young woman turns into a horribly depressed and lonely housewife. The lyrics provide a powerful reminder of the pain, anger, and fear such a seemingly dead-end situation can evoke:

“You haven’t talked to an adult all day,
Except for a neighbor who drives you crazy.
When he finally gets in,
He’s sure not in the mood for talking.”

The chorus is also bone-jarring:

“I was stealing kisses from a boy,
Now I’m begging affection from a man,
In my housedress, don’t know you who i am,
Standing in your kitchen.”

Such a powerful song playing on the radio is bound to stir up some reaction from listeners, and Faith Hill was ready for that reaction. She and her people have set up a website, www.faithhillstealingkisses.com, where her fans have been pouring their hearts out. Already, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of stories and reactions to “Stealing Kisses”, including over a dozen recorded by phone. The website is a rare peek into the emotional quarantine of a traditional country music family.

The last verse of the song forms a stark warning to young women making decisions about their future, many of whom have written in to FaithHillStealingKisses.com. The lyrics describe the protagonist wanting to tell the girls at her old high school to “run” away from the life she has chosen:

So you’re standing outside your high school doors.
The ones you walked through 20 years before,
and you whisper to all the girls:
“run, run, oh, run”.

My interpretation of the message to young women is as follows: go to college, get an enjoyable job, gain empowerment, wait for the perfect man, and don’t marry early. However, judging from the passages on FaithHillStealingKisses.com and from Hill’s own welcoming message on the site, there is another valid interpretation of this last verse and of the song as a whole: a marriage needs an open and shared love, complete with mutual respect.  Indeed, in addition to opportunities, the protagonist in this song is severely lacking in self-respect, a product of being marginalized for 20+ years of marriage. In this new interpretation, we find elements of a revitalized feminism, one in which the job of the housewife is socially acceptable, inherently feminist, and, most importantly, given the respect and support it deserves. The recognition of the validity of the housewife profession while pointing out the failures in so many of its implementations seems to be an excellent reframing of the 1970s’ anti-housewife message.

So, add this to my interpretation of the song: if you’re going to be a housewife - and that’s okay - make sure you marry someone who’ll give you the love and respect you deserve. If you don’t, Hill sings, you’ll end up in the same prison as all those housewives from the 1970s, singing about stolen kisses.

“Stealing Kisses” is on Hill’s latest album, “Fireflies”. The single can be purchased at the iTunes Store. The album can be bought at Amazon, iTunes, and pretty much anywhere else country music is sold.

Shut Up and Sing, the new Dixie Chicks documentary directed by two-time Academy Award winner Cecelia Peck and Barbara Kopple, is a remarkable film, but not for the reasons you might expect.

The backdrop behind the Dixie Chicks for more than three years now has been political controversy: rabid debates over patriotism, free speech and even media consolidation. One would think that a documentary that follows the group over those three years would be dominated by such controversy, but Shut Up and Sing does just the opposite. By focusing on the Chicks as they write and record new material and interact with their families and manager, it minimizes the politics surrounding them and reminds us that they are musicians who happened to make a political statement, not political figures who make music in their spare time.

Yes, we see the Chicks deal with the fallout from “the incident”, and there are some fascinating scenes that show them dealing with the media. Most striking was the building frustration on the part of Emily Robison and Martie Maguire with interviewers who refuse to believe there was never a moment where they were angry at Natalie Maines for what she said. The concert clip shows them laughing when she said it - we can now put to rest any debate that it was anything other than a joke to lighten the mood after speaking out against war and violence - and all indications are that they agree with her. The media’s tendency to want to divide and conquer - they’ve been doing this with musical groups for decades - is on display in real-time here.

By showing that they were singing “Travelin’ Soldier” before making that statement and following the news of the preparations for war on televisions backstage, the film manages to put that comment into context. Seeing the girls balk at the triviality of putting on a concert when people are about to die indicates that their view of their own importance is anything but inflated. That truth is revealed over and over again in the film, as they question their own songwriting abilities and struggle with the demands of balancing motherhood and their career. There’s a powerful moment where Martie talks about what level of success she is hoping they still have, and it has nothing to do with money. She wants to be able to sell enough tickets so that she can afford to bring her husband and kids out on the road with them, because she won’t tour without them.

The film works best when the focus is on the genesis of their most recent album, Taking the Long Way. We’re treated to Rick Rubin, the producer, giving honest feedback about the not-quite-there early demos the girls turn in, and there’s an awesome scene where they play him an early version of “Voice Inside My Head.” He voices what we’re thinking: the verses are terrible, but the chorus is strong and its an amazing melody. Maines wants to give up on the song, and he pushes her to rewrite it. “Easy for you to say,” she jokes. Obviously, she managed to do it, and in its finished version, it’s one of the best things they’ve ever recorded.

We also witness the gestation of “The Long Way Around”, as the girls debate which personal details they want to include about the band’s history in that pivotal track. They work with the excitement of an act making their debut, and in a way that’s what this film captures: the Dixie Chicks reintroducing themselves and redefining what they are about as a band. There was always a polite distance between the Chicks and the material they recorded. Excellent as it was, it never seemed like it was particularly personal. Shut Up and Sing documents them making the choice to get personal on record, and their increasing satisfaction with the music that is the result of that choice.

Ultimately, this film is best suited for fans of their music. In the theater, there were some people around me who were there because they saw the Chicks as their poster children for free speech, and didn’t know a thing about their music. After seeing the film, they were disappointed that it wasn’t a political catharsis but wanted to go buy some of their albums now that they’ve heard their music. That music is the reason anybody knew who Natalie Maines was enough to care what she had to say in London three years ago, and long after the political controversy surrounding them has been forgotten, the music will be their enduring legacy.

When a former big-wig in U.S. politics puts all of his clout behind a Dancing With The Stars contestant and that contestant proceeds to do the exact opposite of what he wants, it’s time for this former big-wig to resign himself to private life, tail tucked between legs.

So goes the story of Tom Delay. The tale begins way back in September, before Sara Evans Divorcegate and the great “Blue Wave”. In the days leading up to the start of the Dancing With The Stars season, a recently-resigned-from-Congress Tom Delay publicly encourages folks on his e-mail list to vote each week for Sara Evans, a country music star and contestant on the show. His reasoning? Delay writes in an e-mail that,

“Sara Evans has been a strong supporter of the Republican Party and represents good American values in the media. From singing at the 2004 Republican Convention to appearing with candidates in the last several election cycles, we have always been able to count on Sara for her support of the things we all believe in. Let’s show Sara that same support by watching and voting for her each week to help her win this competition. One of her opponents on the show is ultra liberal talk show host Jerry Springer. We need to send a message to Hollywood and the media that smut has no place on television by supporting good people like Sara Evans. Sara will be a great representative of the values that we want to see in the media and we should all support her to keep her on the show as long as possible.”

Pay special attention to that mention of Jerry Springer. He’ll be returning to the story soon.

Flash forward a couple of weeks. Evans, a supposedly “great representative of the values that [Tom Delay supporters] want to see in the media”, gets wrapped up in a nasty and scandalous divorce. Whoopsies, Mr. Delay…That’s the worst decision you’ve made since money laundering and Saipan.

But the story gets even more calamitous for our two-faced former House Majority Leader protagonist. According an article today on CMT.com, Evans is bragging that she and Jerry Springer, “the ultra liberal talk show host” and harbinger of “smut…on television”, became friends during their shared Dancing With The Stars experience. What’s more, Evans has invited Springer to perform with her at her concert in Dec. 1 concert in Merryville, Indiana. According to Evans,

“Jerry loves country music…He is a huge fan and even cut a country record so I invited him to sing at my show in Merrillville where he’ll do a couple of classic songs. … I cannot wait!”

By publicly befriending Springer, is Evans consciously telling her Christian Right friends, Delay included, to shove it? It’s impossible to know. For Tom Delay, however, the news is clear: he doesn’t matter anymore.

My request for the Springer/Evans show: “Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)”, dedicated to Tom Delay, of course.

Who says all-star singles were only an 80s thing? Willie Nelson, along with Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, and others, have recorded a new starkly political song penned by Nelson himself and entitled “Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?” Willie’s record company, Lost Highway, plans to unleash the song on the world via the Internet on Tuesday.

While all-star singles have proven to be relatively ineffective, I don’t think I’m the only Liberal Country Fan who has a soft spot in his bleeding heart for a bunch of well-meaning stars singing about the troubles of this world. The full roster of magnanimous musicians is impressive, although not very country:

• Jack Johnson
• Ben Harper
• Michael McDonald
• Lukas and Micah Nelson (Willie’s kids)
• Patrick Simmons of the Doobie Brothers

While many of these folks are probably smoking buddies of Willie’s, the song’s subject matter is anything but insubstantial. The lyrics have religious and people power overtones, with Willie and friends frequently questioning the veracity of Bush and Co.’s motivations while reminding listeners of the moral and spiritual rectitude of peace and truth.

The bottom line: all of this has been said before, but it’s meaningful to hear Willie and friends say it…And it’s a pretty good song, too.

All proceeds from the single will go to the National Veterans Foundation.

Over-consolidation in the media industry is definitely on the list of worries for the average liberal.  As such, I imagine that it is with a raised eyebrow that most of us read the news that Clear Channel, the poster child of media agglomeration, is selling itself to a partnership of two private firms.  The news is also important to the country music part of our Liberal Country Fan sensibilities.  Clear Channel is the largest owner of radio stations in the U.S. and we all learned via the Dixie Chicks that the country music industry and country radio are like co-dependent siamese twins (wearing cowboy hats).  As Peter Cooper of The Tennessean put it in his recent article on the Dixie Chicks documentary “Shut Up and Sing”,

“The story of the Dixie Chicks is a strange, unpleasant, cautionary tale made worse by the way mass corporations program radio stations. The Chicks deal is proof that big business can and will effectively censor art, even art that breeds significant commerce, for political reasons.”

I am no media industry expert, so I’ve been trying to glean what I can from various news reports.  From what I’ve gathered, here is what is important to us Liberal Country Fans:

* Clear Channel will be under the management of the same family as before, with the patriarch stepping into a “chairman emeritus” role and his sons continuing control of day-to-day operations.
* Clear Channel will sell off 448 stations, none of which are in the top 100 markets.  These stations contributed less than 10 percent of the company’s 2005 revenues.
* About 120 of these 448 stations have a country format.  This means Clear Channel is selling off two-thirds of its country radio outlets (all of which have small listener bases).
* It is unclear whether these stations will return to local ownership, or whether they will be scooped up by other media conglomerates.  If they return to local control, Music Row could regain an outlet for breaking new artists, which could mean a slightly more democratic country music industry.
* However, the deal could also mean more media consolidation and corresponding regulatory issues, as one of the private buyers of Clear Channel already has a stake in other radio properties, including Cumulus Media, the second largest radio station owner.
* The deal is part of a wave of media buy-ups by private companies.
* Many experts think these buy-ups will fail in the near future.

Further reading:

“Music Row watches radio deal” - The Tennessean
“Clear Channel to be sold for $18.7 billion” - The Los Angeles Times
“For Wallflowers, a Time to Dance” - The New York Times

Trace Adkins is an avowed Limbaugh-esque Republican, having alluded after the 9/11 anniversary to being a vehement supporter of using torture and other violations of human rights as national security tools. However, he told the San Bernardino Sun yesterday that, even with his far-right viewpoint, he just couldn’t get himself to vote for Republicans this time around:

“That’s exactly what [Congressional Republicans] deserved. Conservatives like me didn’t have anyone to vote for. These people haven’t conducted themselves like conservatives.”

Democrats need to show folks like Trace that we have many of the characteristics he feels the Republican Party lacks, mainly in the areas of ethics reform, national security and budget balancing. We’ll never appeal to him on certain social issues, but Trace and those like him have been awakened to the importance of governmental competence, and we certainly can impress them on that count.

While listening to Al Franken’s Veterans Day show, I couldn’t help but wonder if I am a coward. Why am I leaving nearly the entire burden of this war to my peers? After all, regardless of how I feel about the war, as a liberal, I have an instinctual hatred of seeing others suffer and an associated guilt when I do nothing about it. This feeling hits even closer to home when it is my peers who are struggling.

My liberal unease turns into moral nausea when I think about the thousands of lower class folks in the military who have enlisted as a way to escape the tightening grip of poverty. When viewed through a class lens, I become a lucky, middle-class white guy who is using his silver spoon as a shield against the wretchedness of war.

So why don’t I join up?

The reasons are many, but there are only three that alleviate any guilt, albeit only a small amount. The first is personal: my parents. They’ve fought hard for me throughout my 23 years and would heartbroken and furious if I were to put my life at stake for what they consider to be a disastrously flawed and horribly misguided war. Natalie Maines’ well-known peacenik attitude draws from the same sacred feeling of parental protection. The second reason is political: the apple did not fall far from the tree, and I also regard this war as unworthy of total sacrifice. There is no way I could ever live with my Jewish self if I felt I was sitting out a second World War II, but this is no second World War II. The final reason is practical: I have worked hard to get to grad school, and I hope to greatly serve my country in the academic sector in the future. A trip to Iraq could wipe out this service before it begins.

Obviously, I do not consider these three reasons to be sufficient excuses. After all, there are likely tens of thousands of soldiers and marines with the same reservations who are in Iraq right now. As such, with respect to the fact that I am not sharing in the pain of this quagmire with my countrymen and countrywomen, I am indeed a coward. I am doing my best to take on a small part of the burden by fighting for causes beneficial to our troops and our country - like avoiding such ill-conceived and immoral wars - but my efforts pale in comparison to the sacrifices made by the folks in uniform.

If I can draw any conclusion from this wandering exploration of morality, it’s that we owe the veterans of Iraq big-time. No other strata of our society has suffered so much from this country’s recent heartbreaking foreign policy decisions. Bush may be despised by future Americans, but at least he’ll get to live out the rest of his life. So many of the folks in Iraq have had that opportunity stolen from them, and their families can’t even be comforted by a certainty that their loss was a sacrifice for an irreproachable higher cause.

With any luck, the people in our armed services may be able to squeeze some lemonade from this war of false pretenses and piss poor leadership by setting Iraq on a path to stable democracy. Hopefully, this would bring some comfort to grieving families and injured soldiers. Regardless, however, the people in our military are truly heroes, and they deserve all of this country’s respect and any resources they will ever need.

The website of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is an excellent resource for finding ways to support our troops.