Time to set the meter on “hack pop-country artist releases shitty pro-lynching song” back to zero days
By 
Sometimes it’s who you most suspect:
A channel devoted to country music videos has pulled the video out of rotation after accusations that it promotes racism and violence. But “Try That in a Small Town” has also leaped to the top of many streaming charts, and top Republicans are defending Aldean, who insists the song has nothing to do with race.
“The song I recorded about how Black Lives Matters protestors better be out of my town by sundown has nothing to do with race”
The video is made up largely of news clips showing protests, riots and police confrontations in cities — at least some of which took place during Black Lives Matter demonstrations prompted by police killings. Other clips show an attempted convenience store robbery and other apparent crimes.
These alternate with shots of Aldean and his band performing in the public square of Columbia, Tenn. — population about 45,000.
“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face/ Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, ya think you’re tough,” he sings, and at another point:
“Try that in a small town/ Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right/ If you’re looking for a fight.”
After two minutes of violent images, the video concludes with a brief montage of grainy footage depicting peaceful townspeople and their crops and families.
Some who accuse the video of racism point to its setting in downtown Columbia — the site of historical acts of violence against Black people.
Aldean’s performance backdrop is the Maury County Courthouse, which at times appears to be on fire as images of burning American flags are projected onto it. It’s the same building where a mob hanged 18-year-old Henry Choate from the balcony in 1927. The teen had been accused of attacking a White girl who never identified him as her assailant, and whose mother begged the mob to let him stand trial.
Columbia is also the site of an infamous 1946 race riot that nearly resulted in the lynching of future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
This small town “full of good ol’ boys,” as Aldean sings, is in his home state of Tennessee, which was scandalized in the 1990s by an annual law-enforcement gathering called the “Good Ol’ Boys Roundup” that featured racial slurs and a simulated lynching.
I have no reason not to believe that Aldean had nothing to do with choosing the location, but it’s telling that his label couldn’t be bothered to do even a modicum of research before picking it, although they must be given credit for subliminally catching the spirit of the thing. It also is a good illustration that among other things Aldean (who was raised in Macon and suburban Miami and lives in Nashville) is a smarmy poseur with no actual connection to any small town.
I’ll give the last words to an infinitely more talented current resident of Nashville:
Seriously how do you defend the content of a song you weren’t even in the room for? You just got it from your producer. If you’d been there when it was written, you’d be listed as a writer. We all know how this works. https://t.co/4trCw0S98k— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) July 20, 2023
Be careful, he called his album "Loose Cannon," only a loose cannon would do that.— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) July 20, 2023