Try that In A Small Town

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I haven’t listened to country music since Johnny Cash was doing it…unless you include Bruce doing ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ which is awesome.

Yet, I hear country music being played on job sites and I know who Jason Aldean is - mostly because he was on stage during the masa shooting in Las Vegas.

So, I glanced at the controversy over his new song. I didn’t listen to it or watch the video, but I did read the lyrics.

I shrugged at most of it - just another tough guy anthem about not standing for all that is being done to their memories of when the world was great.

Boring.

And wrong.

I was alive back then in a small town. Life was grand, but there were a lot of problems that didn’t see the light of day - for minorities, gays, women.

There were problems with substance abuse and corruption. The small-town mentality wasn’t all that sharp.

But there is a line in there about his beloved gun and a veiled threat about someone coming to get it.

How does someone caught in a mass shooting look at that carnage and think:

“I love guns and I’ll shoot anyone who talks about curbing gun violence.”

I don’t know.

I guess the video shows BLM and clips from the news about the protests…

…so some feel there are racial tensions too.

I’m not one who is for telling someone what to write…

…so the controversy feels forced to a point.

But to ignore the mass shooting problem, and even glorify violence in one respect?

That’s as dopey as believing we were all trapped in an episode of ‘Leave it to Beaver’ as we grew up.

It wasn’t all just ‘Happy Days.’

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