CMT removed Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ music video from rotation

This week, Jason Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town” has been making a lot of headlines. I didn’t realize, before now, that the song has been out for a few months already. The music video recently came out, which is probably what started this week-long conversation about the lyrics of the song and the imagery of the video. The lyrics are plainly pro-lynching. The music video is plainly pro-lynching, especially given that Aldean staged the video at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site of the lynching of Henry Choate in 1927. Well, it looks like Aldean’s Git Er Done (Er being “lynching”) message was too much even for the country-music network CMT. CMT removed Aldean’s video from the air and Aldean threw a huge hissy fit about all of the backlash. Keep in mind, Aldean and his Insurrectionist Barbie wife are very MAGA.

CMT has confirmed that, after initially airing Jason Aldean’s highly controversial music video for “Try That in a Small Town,” the network pulled the contentious clip from the air on Monday, even before the furor over the tune grew greater on Tuesday. A CMT spokesperson had no further comment on the video being yanked. Reps for Aldean’s label, BBR Music Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Billboard was first to report the video being removed by the network.

Meanwhile, Aldean took to his social media Tuesday afternoon to defend the song from its many critics, taking a much softer tone in his messaging than he does in the hostile single itself, or a video that projects images of demonstrators onto a courthouse that was the site of a famous lynching.

“In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous… There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far. As so many pointed out, I was present at Route 91-where so many lost their lives- and our community recently suffered another heartbreaking tragedy. NO ONE, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart.”

Aldean tried to paint the song as taking a positive attitude on small towns, and downplayed the belligerent threats to outsiders that make up most of the lyrics, not to mention the stock footage of protesters that takes up a good portion of the video’s running time.

“‘Try That In A Small Town,’ for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences. My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it to — that’s what this song is about.”

[From Variety]

“Where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief.” The song is literally about white guys murdering people who don’t “fit in” with his all-white, all-Christian view of small towns?? What if your small-town neighbor is a Black woman who attends BLM protests? Is the song about her right to exist as a Black woman in a small town and her right to protest? No. It’s not. It’s a song which is gleefully about murder, lynching and mythologizing a corrupt and racist police state. Anyway, I’m sort of shocked that CMT made the decision to remove the video. As Variety pointed out in the piece, it will be interesting to see if country-music radio follows suit and removes the song from rotation (hint: they will not). I imagine this controversy will make the song climb up the country music charts too.

Variety’s music critic didn’t hold back this week: “Jason Aldean Already Had the Most Contemptible Country Song of the Decade. The Video Is Worse.” Yeah, I’m not posting the video.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.