Southern Artists Speak Up

 

Three popular Texan and Appalachian country/Americana artists have recently put out passionate songs addressing current issues of racism, police violence and reproductive choice.

Texan Maren Morris, who recently had a #1 hit on the country charts in The Bones, has just released Better Than We Found It:

Over and under and above the law

My neighbor's in danger, who does he call?

When thе wolf's at the door all covered in bluе

Shouldn't we try somethin' new?

We're over a barrel, and at the end of one too

 

When time turns this moment to dust

I just hope that I'm proud of the woman I was

When lines of tomorrow are drawn

Can I live with the side that I chose to be on?

Will we sit on our hands, do nothin' about it?

Or will we leave this world better than we found it?

 

In the accompanying video are are clips of real people – Dreamers, Black Lives Matter protestors, families of police violence victims seeking justice. After the song is a beautiful scene with her newborn son. “Negativity, fear and bitterness haven’t yet touched you. You are kind and curious. I want to rekindle that in me”.

 

 

Another Texan, Amanda Shires (Morris’s Highwomen bandmate), has released The Problem, a duet with her husband, singer/songwriter Jason Isbell. Isbell and Shires have been very active this fall supporting Democratic fundraisers for the presidential race as well as many senatorial races. The Problem, a beautiful ballad, is a dialog between a man and a woman concerning the decision to have an abortion:

Jason: What do you wanna do?

Amanda:

I'm scared to even say the truth

This has been the hardest year

Jason: Is it even legal here?

Amanda:

I'm trying not to think of names

And will you look at me the same?

Do you need the reasons why?

Is a chrysalis a butterfly?

Jason:

And all I could think to say

Was, "Everything's going to be okay

It's going to be alright

I'm on your side"

I'm on your side

Shires recently explained that she had written the song a while ago but was reluctant to put it out for fear of controversy. After the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the apparent direction of Republicans to deny abortion rights, she felt compelled to release it. All proceeds go to the Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization serving Alabama and the Deep South.

 

Perhaps the most in-your-face song and video is the new one from Tyler Childers, Long Violent History. Childers, from Hickman Hollow outside of Paintsville in eastern Kentucky, received a Grammy Best Country Solo Performance nomination last year for All Your’n. A few weeks ago he dropped a new album of fiddle instrumentals, concluding with the song Long Violent History:

Now, what would you get if you heard my opinion

Conjecturin' on matters that I ain't never dreamed

In all my born days as a white boy from Hickman

Based on the way that the world's been to me?

 

It's called me belligerent, it's took me for ignorant

But it ain't never once made me scared just to be

Could you imagine just constantly worryin'

Kickin' and fightin', beggin' to breathe?

 

How many boys could they haul off this mountain

Shoot full of holes, cuffed and layin' in the streets

'Til we come into town in a stark ravin' anger

Looking for answers and armed to the teeth?

Just in case anyone misinterpreted his support for Black Lives Matter he recorded a 6 minute "Message from Tyler” video in which he goes through imagined examples of police violence aimed at white rural people and ponders how people like him would respond:

I venture to say if we were met with this type of daily attack on our own people we would take action in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia [a 1921 battle in which 10,000 armed coal miners fought lawmen and strikebreakers in an attempt to unionize the coal mines]. And If we wouldn't stand for it, why would we expect another group of Americans to stand for it? Why would we stand silent while it happened, or worse, get in the way of it being rectified?

The net proceeds from this record will support underserved communities in the Appalachian region through the newly created Hickman Holler Appalachian Relief Fund.

It is so gratifying to hear these powerful white voices, from a region and in a musical tradition deemed by many to be hopelessly reactionary, speak up for what they believe in and actively support their local communities.