THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE OUT
THE CHICKS, FORMERLY DIXIE CHICKS
Where there’s rage, there’s often humor.
Stand-up comics frequently turn anger into jokes. For many people, laughing is a way to destress and temper emotions in extreme situations. It’s both defense mechanism and selfpreservation.
That balance has fueled the music of Texas trio The Chicks’ from the beginning: “Tonight the Heartache’s on Me,” “Some Days
You Gotta
Dance,” ultimate revenge fantasy “Goodbye Earl.” And they’ve always done it in a smart, centered way. “Gaslighter,” the title track from The Chicks’ first album in 14 years, follows the same blueprint. The group shortened its name in response to worldwide protests against police brutality and racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The word “Dixie” references the Civil War-era South.
On The Chicks’ website, it simply read, “We want to meet this moment.”
Miss Leslie, a Houston country singer and Chicks fans, sees the name change and new music as not just rebranding but possibly a maturing of the group.
“They’re not the fun college girls anymore. They have experienced the transition to womanhood, when you speak out about your beliefs and face the haters and find out whether you will continue to stand on your own two feet or slink away in fear,” she says. “I still hear those in-your-face lyrics. It’s still the Dixie Chicks. Just older and wiser, and maybe the name change was the best way to reflect that.”
The song “Gaslighter,” amid pounding drums and gorgeous harmonies, plays as a direct takedown of singer Natalie Maines’ ex-husband, actor Adrian Pasdar. (“You thought I wouldn’t see it if you put it in my face/Give you all my money you’ll gladly walk away.”) It’s a theme throughout much of the album. The term describes a person who uses psychological manipulation to make someone else question reality.
But it could also be seen as a condemnation of President Donald Trump. Maines herself made the correlation on her Instagram, setting the song to clips of the president downplaying the coronavirus. There have been more than 3 million cases and more than 130,000 deaths in the U.S. The group also roasted the former reality star on its 2016 DCX MMXVI Tour.
Maines is no stranger to presidential put-downs. She forever changed the group’s trajectory in 2003, during President George W. Bush’s term, when she told a London crowd that they were “ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas”
in response to the invasion of Iraq. The overblown reaction included boycotts, death threats and banishment from country radio.
It also inspired the band’s excellent “Taking the Long Way” album, which sold more than 2 million copies and won five Grammys; and the “Shut Up & Sing” documentary about the incident and its aftermath. Since then, Maines released a solo album and sisters Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire recorded two album as Court Yard Hounds.
Returning to country radio
Country radio seems to still be cautiously open to a reunion. Beyoncé invited The Chicks to perform “Daddy Lessons” with her at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards, again inciting the ire of some fans across social media. Never mind that it was far and away the highlight of the night.
And not that it matters much at this point. Earlier this month, Strayer told the New York Times that, “I really have a don’t-give-a(expletive) part to me now, which I didn’t have before.”
Still, “Gaslighter” made it to No. 20 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, the group’s best showing in almost two decades. And it reached No. 1 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart, selling 12,000 copies its first week.
Austin City Limits Radio (97.1 FM KGSR) added the song “day one” and is still playing it.
“It’s done well,” says Loris Lowe, KGSR music director. “It’s received ‘decent to great’ scores from our listeners.”
Follow-up single “March March” incorporates electro-pop twitches alongside the banjo and violin. In many ways, it feels like the album’s emotional center, a rumination on racism, climate change and gun control. It takes up two pages in the album booklet, the lyrics set against a photo of The Chicks wearing flowered gas masks and Vogue-ready outfits.
The accompanying video flashes images of protests, and the names of Black people killed by police scroll over the screen. It’s a strong, effective statement by a band that has long championed similar causes.
Trent Lira, half of Houston synth-pop duo Space Kiddettes, likens it to a Taylor Swift track. That’s no surprise. Much of the album was co-written and coproduced by Jack Antonoff, who helped orchestrate Swift’s pop crossover and has worked with Lorde and Carly Rae Jepsen.
“It sees them leaning a lot further sonically into a pop realm than ever before,” Lira says. “But we also hear the signature Chicks harmonies and instrumentation. I love hearing them just let the song breathe as they play. It’s a powerful and biting track.”
Classic Chicks
The rest of the album, in many ways, is indeed classic Chicks. These are songs about loss and hope, revenge and redemption, veering through rock and pop and country. And it’s clear exactly who Maines is singing about on several songs co-written by Justin Tranter, whose credits include Selena Gomez’s “Lose You to Love Me” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.”
“My Best Friend’s Wedding”: Maines met Pasdar at the wedding of bandmate Strayer to Charlie Robison.
“Young Man”: A bittersweet dedication to Maines’ sons Jackson Slade and Beckett Finn Pasdar. (“Your hero fell just as you came of age … Take the best parts of him/As your own life begins/Leave the bad news behind you.”)
“Sleep at Night”: “Remember you brought her to our show at the Hollywood Bowl/She said I love you I’m such a fan/I joked that you can love me as long as you don’t love my man/There’s nothin’ funny about that.”
Still, “Texas Man” finds them clinging to the hope of finding someone back home despite being broken. It’s that complicated dynamic that has kept The Chicks more vital and more interesting than genre acts still concerned with playing by the rules.
“Whatever the reason, and regardless of whether my political views align with theirs, I will always admire women that live with authenticity and refuse to kowtow who they are just because it doesn’t align with popular opinion,” Miss Leslie says. “I liked that they were a femalefronted group. I liked that they were instrumentalists. I liked that the lead singer had a gutsy, belting voice. I liked that they were fun, trendy and flamboyant. They were the cool girls from high school — the ones we wanted to be like but just didn’t have the courage.”