If what you say is true in the end you will have amounted to nothing. Your very existence will one day be nullified. Why do what you do? Love is meaningless, making people happy is meaningless, everything that you do has no meaning. There are no consequences to your actions. You have no purpose. And what is life without purpose?


This viewpoint is hollow, and utterly dishonest.
A scrap of blue fabric may have no meaning or significance to me, but to someone else, it may be all that remains of a blanket their long-dead grandmother gave to them when they were a baby.
you could hold that scrap of fabric up to 1000 different people, and ask "what is the meaning of this fabric?" to all of them, there would be no meaning. To that one person, it means the world to them, as it is their only reminder of their beloved grandmother, and stirs memories and feelings of love in them.

Meaning and propose are defined by those who experience them. Does eating a sandwich have more or less meaning if there is some cosmic overseer out there?
Or put differently, consider music. Some people love country music, others hate it. No religion on the planet makes any references to country music. Does this mean that country music has no meaning or significance?

From famoustexans.com

Bob Wills hated the hillbilly image associated with country music. But then, this was a different kind of country music anyway. If he hadn't played a fiddle, no one would have connected country to the Playboys' music at all. It was really jazz; jazz that portrayed a dignified South, with flowing fiddles and classy, sometimes brassy, arrangements. Their rags, breakdowns, Dixieland tunes, and swingin' blues were an uplifting beacon of light in otherwise hard, depressed times of the 1930s.

The Playboys usually appeared in cowboy dress attire. No sequins or overalls, this was a sophisticated outfit. Bob's look was that of a well-dressed bandleader, but one from Texas. His cowboy hat, cigar, and fiddle were all part of his trademark appearance.

'Bob was a stylish, western rogue,' says Ray Benson, leader of Asleep At The Wheel, Western Swinging Bob Wills disciples for the past quarter century. 'He danced onstage, he was outrageous. He strutted like a peacock, unheard of back in those days.' In all other respects, he led a Big Band just like Tommy Dorsey, in a presentation that was downright orchestral - except Bob conducted with a fiddle bow.

I was inaccurate in my comment.

You aren't like a bar owner. You're more like a regular customer who never tips, eats all the peanuts and pretzels, and then bitches there is too much country music on the jukebox.

Self-link? Where? Let me at 'em!

if you want a little bang in your yin yang?

And this is why country music should just implode already.

Upvote though for this song being pure unadulterated crap.

alt country? really? I always thought of them as being 'desert rock' or something... more like black heart procession than some poorly-tattooed alt-country music group that curses and acts hard.

I grew up in a very isolated tiny country town in Louisiana and the only music I knew was country music. One day I found an unmarked cassette tape in my dad's truck and went to my room to listen to it and this was the first song I heard. It really blew me away. I listened to the rest and never knew it was Jimi Hendrix until a few years later. This track introduced me to a whole new world.

It's not fake. James "country music is rubbish" May wrote a response on the show's blog.

I'm not so sure the people were responding to the epithets as to the elitist Brits who are obviously only there to poke fun. Doesn't excuse their actions in the slightest, but frankly, this was a dickhead move from the start.

Of course, I still laughed.

Hey, for those of us that don't know the details LadyBug, what was the controversy? I don't understand the Politics tag for this and what was "speaking their mind" that went wrong?

I don't like country music, but I certainly like about 5 songs from the Dixie Chicks.

The digression of country music has pretty much followed that of pop, rock, r&b, etc.....popular music is a great gauge for keeping up with the breakdown of societies, their sensibilities and cultures.
Do this sifter bees the only one who thinks this song sucks ass, or any such catchy-penned editorial on the state of affairs in a crumbling empire.....?

.....or is he just an easily irritated, opinionated asshole??

To quote Jeffrey Ross, "the only thing worse than country music is country comedy".

I get "cutie" and "swinging" (and "Canadian"'s apparently wrong), but what's in any way, shape, or form "folk" about this song?

Or has "alt.country" caught on enough that anything that sounds like traditional or "country" music - and yet appeals to hipsters/indie people - gets called that now, leaving "folk" free for anything?

(Yes, I'm an indie music fan. No, I'm definitely not "indie people".)

What can I say?

Even though I'm not much of a country music aficionado, this is one of my all-time favorite songs. I like the tune, I like the professionism and I like the four western buddhists angle. I like, well, the whole damn thing.

Listen to the crowd if you don't think these guys are awesome.

That's what I can say.

Good points, theo. I do love some Al Green and if I only knew how to fancy html link to that Soul Train performance, then it would be linked here.

But my tolerance for actors such as Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson runs roughly proportional to how much of their particular political message is intertwined with their work. Mel Gibson of Mad Max, fine. Mel Gibson of Braveheart or le Passion, pretty unbearable.

Which brings me back around to the Chicks. A thinking artist is aware both of their audience and how they wish to inspire, move, or disturb their audience. The Chicks seemed and still seem genuinely shocked that their core of conservative Southern country music yay-hoos and lesser yay-hoos didn't follow their scorn of the Fearless Leader.

Why were they surprised? Like Keith and Greenwood, are they in a happy country bubble?

I find that culture produced by those who I am politically opposed to tends to suck. However, I argue that it is not because of my personal bias but more because of the differences that exist between a liberal and conservative mindset. Throughout history art has always been more liberal than society, and attempts to create conservative art have always to me at least felt like shallow imitations of liberal counterparts.... Although as far as country music goes I pretty much hate it all.

Ah, the perils of wanting to be loved for your country music and your anti-war views. I think that we can all agree that anyone who tosses death threats at Dixie Chicks merely because the band doesn't like GWB is despicable.

However, I actually agree with Wumpus that freedom of speech does not equal the freedom to be loved for your speech. If you take the speaker's box, expect to have rotten fruit thrown at you sometimes. I wouldn't expect the Heritage Foundation and/or the ruling Coulterians to love and adore my ideas.

Barbara Kopple is a great documentarian. This film will probably be more nuanced than Natalie Maines.