Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning? Alan Jackson’s haunting question doubles as the title for his incredibly moving 2002 ballad.
I, like so many other proud, freedom-loving, Americans undoubtedly get the chills any time this song is played. Just as I feel myself beginning to choke up, remembering my first grade self watching the news on September 11, 2001, Jackson sings, “Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow. Or go out and buy you a gun?” Suddenly I am snapped back into 2016, I am a staunch Democrat attending a very liberal college in Michigan, and I feel guilty for enjoying this song that promotes something I am so strongly opposed to.
When I listen to songs like that one, or others by some of my favorite country artists such as Eric Church, Chris Stapleton, Tim McGraw, I find myself growing quite conflicted. How can I disagree so strongly with some of what they sing about but love their music so much at the same time?
I always knew I was different from my friends. Growing up liberal in a small, conservative town in the middle of North Dakota I knew I differed from the majority of my community in many ways. I was so young, it never bothered me. To be completely honest, I never fully realized how contradictory my taste in music conflicted with my taste in political leaders. However, since moving to Michigan for school I have realized that it’s not often you meet a country music- loving democrat from North Dakota. I now know how much of an anomaly I truly am.
My liberal political views are ruining one of my favorite pastimes: listening to country music. I’ll catch myself listening a little too closely to some of the lyrics and suddenly becoming quite unsettled with myself. The inner conflict I feel: calling for stricter gun laws in the classroom at my (very) liberal college, but then singing along to Alan Jackson 34 Number One Hits I feel like a hypocrite. I’ve said, on more than one occasion, that I feel like I should be a republican when I listen to country music. I feel I should temporarily shelf my liberal self so I can listen to my music in good conscious and then support my candidate of choice (Go Hillary!) also in good conscious.
I’m not sure how to reconcile these feelings, especially at this point in my life. It’s summertime, which we all know is prime country music listening season, but it is also election season. I drive down the highway, windows rolled down with The Best of Tim McGraw blaring, well aware of the Hillary Clinton bumper sticker firmly affixed to the back of my car. I repost articles pleading the universe to allow Barack Obama one more term in office while singing to Spotify’s “Country Gold” playlist.
We all know what happened to the Dixie Chicks when they didn’t conform to the traditional conservative country singer mold. They spoke their minds and received nothing but negative backlash and harsh criticism from their fellow Americans. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me. I don’t want my different senses of self and their seemingly irreconcilable differences to land me in that same boat, either exiled from my fellow liberal Americans or exiled from my fellow country music loving Americans.
We all live in the same country. We drive the same red dirt roads, watch the same sunsets, drink the same Bud Lights. I always thought music supposed to bring people together, act as a tool to build a bridge across differences. Yet, the more rooted I become in my political views, the more I become conflicted when I change my radio to the country station.
