A Great Line
Came across a great line from the Dixie Chicks on their latest album,Taking the Long Way. The song is "Lubbock or Leave It" and is one of the songs that the group uses to reflect on their problems with the country music fans over their not supporting President Bush and the way he is running the war in Iraq. The more famous song is Not Ready to Make Nice" which reaffirms their committment to what they're doing. This song comes at it from the fact that much of their fan-base has traditionally come from the "Bible Belt."

So they challenge the way many of us live during the week and then head off to our church-based "niceness" on the weekend. Here's the verse with the line that struck me:

Throwing stones from the top of your rock
Thinking no one can see
The secrets you hide behind
Your southern hospitality
On the strip the kids get lit
So they can have a real good time
Come Sunday they can just take their pick
From the crucifix skyline

I'm not sure why that last line struck me like it did. But I got this image of all the churches in many of these old "Bible Belt-type" communities and in many the churches are the skyline. You get on a igher hill and look over the town's sillhouette and that is what you will see.

But that doesn't mean these places are any more (or any less) holy than other places. But it sounds like the Dixie Chicks are seeing the contrast in new ways. After all they got death threats and all kinds of other negative responses simply because they did the unthinkable- they exercised their freedom of speech.

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I hope their fans are willing to accept their political views. After all, the right to have different opinions and to disagree about them is what we are fighting to help give the Iraqis. Wouldn't it be sad if that war effort to bring deomcracy there could cause us to forget what it is that makes the USA such an incredible place.