Author’s Note: This write-off was conceived by a group of Music Advisors who were sadistic enough to foist off some of the stranger items in their CD collections onto other people, and the participants are all a bunch of masochists who agreed to have strange music sent to us. Okay, so perhaps some of us had a pretty good time with it. In any case, the basic purpose of this write-off was for everyone to pair up and trade CD’s that the other person wouldn’t normally listen to. My partner is Monnie1976, and she was clever enough to look through my ratings of CD’s I hadn’t reviewed yet and pick out something that I appeared to dislike – the Dixie Chicks. I did my best to give her a Christian rock album that would come off as inoffensive and on par with the best of mainstream rock. Her review of Chasing Furies can be found here:

http://www.epinions.com/content_29637447300

What can be said about the Dixie Chicks? Amidst a growing sea of sappy sellout country-pop singers (Faith Hill, Shania Twain, etc.), it’s actually quite a relief to see a country act who still does real country. Perhaps the overall twanginess of country gets on my nerves at times, but when it’s good, it’s really good, especially when all manner of fiddles and banjos and steel guitars get thrown into the mix and a group sounds like they’re having fun and they don’t give a rip about the pop charts. The occasional tug-at-the-heartstrings ballad can be nice from time to time, but I find most so-called country albums that hit the mainstream to be far too full of the latter and devoid of the former. For the most part, I’ve left country music alone. But now I’ve been assigned the task of saying something about it. And I have to say, the Dixie Chicks are an interesting place to start.

I’ll admit right up front that I didn’t have the best introduction to the Dixie Chicks. My girlfriend and I were driving with a friend of ours who can be a bit of a troublemaker, and she had just discovered the Chicks, so she had to play a few tunes for us. The very first thing she decided to do was to stick Fly in the CD player and crank “Goodbye Earl”, the infamous tune about two women who conspire to kill off an abusive husband, to full volume. My girlfriend loved it. I was appalled. However, in an attempt to better understand my girlfriend’s growing interest in country music, I listened to Fly once, trying to keep an open mind. Then, a few months later, I was commissioned by my write-off partner to review it, so I just borrowed it from my girlfriend and forced myself to sit through it a few times at work. I’ve gotten to the point where I feel like I can be fair in reviewing this album – it’s tolerable, and a few of the songs are actually pretty darn good. So this won’t be a full-on rant about why the Dixie Chicks suck and country music should relocate to an even warmer climate than where it came from. Sorry to disappoint you.

Ready to Run
When my momma says I look good in white, I’m gonna be ready this time…
I must say, the CD start off with a lot of promise. This catchy little tune about the fear of commitment (featured on the Runaway Bride soundtrack) begins with a rather Irish-sounding flute/whistle intro, and then the acoustic guitars jump in, and we get our first taste of lead singer Natalie Maines, whose voice is unabashedly country but still full of grit and girl power. She seems daunted by the idea of marriage, wanting just a little more time to “go out and have some fun”. This may seem a bit superficial, and believe me, I don’t take too kindly to that approach in some of the other songs on this album, but it doesn’t seem like she’s knocking commitment altogether – she’s just saying she can’t handle it just yet. This was one of the hit singles from the album, of course, and I think a lot of people heard it quite a few times before realizing just how repetitive the last half of the song can be (one of my pet peeves is when someone writes a song that goes nowhere new after the first two verses and choruses), but it’s still hands-down the best track on the album.

If I Fall You’re Going Down with Me
Nobody runs from the law now baby, of love and gravity…
This is another upbeat and playful number, and though I thought from the title that it would be a mean-spirited jab at a former lover, it’s actually a clever way of addressing a potential lover, telling him that she won’t fall in love unless he’s willing to fall too. Natalie sounds slightly more nasal on this song (and her voice can start to grate as the album progresses), but again, I’d rather have this than a pretty face and body plastered onto a CD to sell meaningless pop fluff. The fiddles really get going in this song, and it’s a lot of fun. So far, so good.

Cowboy Take Me Away
I wanna be the only one for miles and miles, except for maybe you and your simple smile…
Another smash-hit – when the Chicks hit it big with a song, it ain’t just on the country charts. Slowing things down a bit, this was a love song inspired by Emily Robison (one of the three Chicks in the current group lineup) finally finding love. Once again, the Chicks’ unabashedly country approach, combined with the sensibility of modern production, really makes this song “fly”. Similar to “Wide Open Spaces”, the title track from the Chicks’ previous album, this song praises the great outdoors with some great lyrics such as “I said I wanna touch the earth/I wanna break it in my hands/I wanna grow something wild and unruly.” As the song nears its emotional climax and the banjo breaks in, it’s really quite delicious.

Cold Day in July
Your bags are packed, not a word is spoken, I guess we said everything with goodbye…
This is the first “depressing” song on the album, though I admit I really like this one. (Yes, for those of you keeping count, I’ve liked all four songs so far. Just wait.) I normally don’t approve of sticking two ballads back to back so early in an album, but these sorts of songs are a staple of country music, so it’s forgivable. It starts with a rather un-country electric guitar, and the overall tone of the song isn’t as bright as “Cowboy”, but still very twangy. The lyric somewhat cleverly takes the old cliché and mourns the end of a relationship (likely a marriage) that no one saw coming. The image of a woman standing there barefoot, watching her husband/boyfriend drive away as the sun comes up down on Main Street, is effective and haunting. Anyone who has either watched their parents break up, or who has been through divorce, can probably relate to this song. I like how the weather in the surrounding neighborhood is described as being warm and sunny, while children are out playing in the street (though I couldn’t figure out what they were doing out at dawn, but let’s not split hairs over that one), and yet it’s still “cold”. Good use of an otherwise weary phrase.

Goodbye Earl
Well the weeks went by, and spring turned to summer, and summer faded into fall, and it turned out he was a missing person who nobody missed at all…
Okay, here’s my first objection. Now don’t get me wrong, the music here is upbeat and fun-fun-fun, and the Chicks had to have had a blast writing and recording it. If you didn’t know anything about the song, your first reaction would be to wonder why the Chicks were singing such an upbeat song about spousal abuse. As you become acquainted with the characters – Wanda, the victimized wife who married the slovenly Earl for lack of anyone better, and her friend Mary Anne who runs to the rescue, you do really start to feel for Wanda as Natalie belts out her sad story without missing a beat. That all comes to a screeching halt the minute she sings about the plan Mary Anne and Wanda came up with, sneering, “It didn’t take them long to decide that EARL HAD TO DIE!!!” (Insert happy backup vocalists here: “Na na na na na…”) I’m ashamed to admit that some of the clever lyrics in this song about their plan to get rid of Earl sometimes catch me off-guard and make me laugh, but seriously, I have moral problems with this. Abuse doesn’t justify murder. I admire the Chicks’ forthright attitude in condemning spousal abuse, and they do mention in the liner notes that they don’t actually endorse first-degree murder (though they didn’t say jack squat about the other degrees), but the whole thing was done in poor taste.

Hello Mr. Heartache
When I don’t feel like company, you make yourself at home…
I have to say, the Dixie Chicks are good at transitions between songs, especially here, where the last note of “Goodbye Earl” leads us immediately into Natalie singing “Hello”. However, this song is where the musical quality of the CD began to drop rapidly, in my opinion. It mozies on by on top of a lazy country shuffle – this is more of the old-school country that never appealed to me. The song is just out-and-out depressing – not sad in the inspiring “I really feel your pain” sort of way like “Cold Day” was, but sad more in that “I’m a stranger sitting by you in the bar and I have no one else to talk to” sort of way. I like how they try to characterize heartache as a male character, but it’s been done before, and I don’t really feel sorry for them this time around. Hey, if you’re going to either run away from marriage or kill off your husband, you kind of brought this one on yourself, right?

Don’t Waste Your Heart
All the pushin’ away and puttin’ down, can’t you see you’re getting’ the run-around…
Another sad song – this one tries a little harder to be original, though musically it’s not much more exciting than “Heartache” was. Here Natalie is addressing a guy who just doesn’t know how to take a hint (either that it’s over or that she doesn’t want to get together in the first place), telling him he can find someone better suited for him. However, she seems to communicate this by treating him like crap. Gee, why didn’t you just speak up in the first place? I realize that the Dixie Chicks aren’t exactly marketing themselves to a male audience, but it stings sometimes to hear them singing about treating guys like playthings and not losing any sleep over it. Maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s not exactly a turn-on.

Sin Wagon
On a mission to make something happen, feel like Delilah looking for Samson, gonna do a little mattress dancin’…
I’m not sure if this song has been released as a single, but I know it’s a fan favorite, and the Chicks even thought of making this the title track for the album. It starts deceptively with an electric guitar before kicking into a square dance at warp speed, and once again, you’ve got all those distinctly country instruments going, and it’s just great… until Natalie starts singing about how she’s been hurt by a guy and how that apparently gives her the right to go out and do whatever the hell she feels like doing with whoever the hell she feels like doing it with. (Yeah, that’s right, she said “mattress dancin’”.) I admit, as far as rebellion goes, promiscuity beats killing people, but she soon gets to a lyric that I just can’t tolerate. After the very clever line “When it’s my turn to march up to glory, I’m gonna have one hell of a story”, she follows it up with “That’s if He forgives me.” Now I’m not gonna go on a religious rant here, but doesn’t it seem rather counterproductive to claim belief in God, Heaven, et al, and then life your life as if you just don’t give a rip? That’s just plain ignorance, and not exactly the picture of faith I’d like for people to walk away with. Still, on a musical level the song is a blast, which really drives me nuts – I want to like it, but I can’t.

Without You
Somebody tell my head to tell my heart that I’m better off without you…
Zzzz… Oh, I’m sorry. Was there a song here? Apparently this was another successful single, and I guess I can see why. This is the generic “My life sucks when you’re not around” sort of song, and I’m sure lots of people have connected with it. Musically, it’s nothing we haven’t already heard on this album, and lyrically, it’s extremely disappointing to hear a group who is capable of writing good songs decide to record a song someone else wrote that has such profound lines as “Without you I’m not okay” and “My heart’s stuck in second place”. Ugh. Leave that stuff to Britney, okay?

Some Days You Gotta Dance
My mind was racin’, I was pacin’, but the words just wouldn’t come, and there was only one thing left to do, I feel it comin’ on…
Okay, I’m trying to feel the positive message of this song – life gets stressful and sometimes you just have to let loose, have some fun, and know that the world will still turn without you. It’s a very lighthearted number with more playful fiddle work and a fun hand-clap breakdown in the middle. The first verse is passable – Natalie describes a late day at work that leaves her completely frustrated, and deals with it by going out to dance. Good anger management (a better solution than murder, I must say). The whole thing goes awry in the second verse when Natalie describes her lover asking her how she feels about him, and she doesn’t even have the decency to answer him, because she’d rather dance and not think about serious things like their relationship. (Sheesh, and women get ticked at men for being too busy watching football.) I guess I’m hoping the Chicks write a song someday called “Some Days You Gotta Actually Deal with Your Problems.” It’s a darn shame that every upbeat song on this album, save for the first two, has been mired with either moral corruptness, ignorance, or total superficiality.

Hole in My Head
People must think I’m lazy, like my shuffle’s short of a playing card…
This song has a darker musical tone – more electric guitar gives it a meaner feel as Natalie repeats, “I need a boy like you like a hole in my head.” While I don’t find this one to be as objectionable (it’s a breath of fresh air after the frustrating middle third of the album!), it certainly isn’t a stand-out tune either. The verses are very repetitive, like an old blues standard would be, and I get the effect that the songwriters were going for, but this one ain’t a classic.

Heartbreak Town
I’ve seen ‘em rise and I’ve seen ‘em fall, some get nothin’, and Lord some get it all…
This tune deals with loneliness and hopelessness with much better lyrical imagery than “Heartache” did. You can feel the sadness in the strings that lead off this song, and even if the lyrics aren’t top-notch, it definitely leaves an image in the listener’s head of a podunk town with about fifty people and a post office or something like that, where there ain’t much to do, and everyone knows your business (what little there is to tell). The song wavers between the clever (“Stardust, well it’s a funny thing/it can make you cuss, it can make you sing/And the need to touch it gets hard to explain some days”) and the cliché (“Square people in a world that’s round”), but overall, it’s enjoyable (for a sad song). The Chicks rather inexplicably let the last five seconds or so of this song run on to track 13, so there isn’t actually a song on 13 (I was told this was a superstitious thing). The liner notes list 13 as “Ain’t No Thang but a Chicken Wang”, but it’s just the tail end of the song fading out. That can be annoying when you’re listening to a CD out of order.

Let Him Fly
There’s no mercy in a live wire, no rest at all in freedom…
The album ends rather fittingly with a slow acoustic ballad that keeps a good balance between sadness and hopefulness. It describes a relationship slowly meeting its end, and Natalie sings as if she knows that it will be a good thing to “let him fly”. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be between two people, and it’s nice to hear a country song about a breakup that doesn’t involve cheating, drinking, or murder – just two people growing apart. Backed by some subtle but effective slide guitar playing, this track is a much needed dose of wisdom to close out an album that is at times stubborn in its foolishness.

There’s no denying that the Chicks had fun with this one. Looking through the liner notes is quite a kick – in between the lyrics are random snapshots of the girls and some other folks tinkering around in the studio, as well as some rather humorous visual puns on the word “fly”. The word “fly” comes up in many of the songs, five of which were co-written by at least one of the Chicks (they all collaborated on “Sin Wagon”). The other songs were all written by different people, so you get the feeling that at least it wasn’t a producer and a few stock songwriters trying to throw some generic songs together in order to get the girls’ sex appeal out onto the market as fast as possible. The Dixie Chicks wanted to make this personal instead of just shooting a bunch of photos of them in their underwear as if it were a Victoria’s Secret catalog (Faith Hill, take note). And even if I have problems with some of the things they sing about, I have to respect the Chicks for that. The Dixie Chicks are one of those groups I can simultaneously appreciate and rip on mercilessly. Some days you gotta love ‘em, and some days, you gotta praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and let those Chicks fly, ‘cause I’ve got some huntin’ to do.

(Okay, I’ll stop making puns on the song titles. I know you’re all ready to run screaming.)

TRACK REVIEW SUMMARY
Excellent: Ready to Run, Cowboy Take Me Away, Cold Day in July
Good: If I Fall You're Going Down with Me, Let Him Fly
Decent: Hole in My Head
Weak: Don't Waste Your Heart, Sin Wagon, Some Days You Gotta Dance, Heartbreak Town
Skippable: Goodbye Earl, Hello Mr. Heartache, Without You

Band Members:
Natalie Maines: Lead & harmony vocals
Martie Seidel: Harmony vocals, fiddle, viola
Emily Robison: Harmony vocals, banjo, dobro, lap steel, acoustic guitar

A host of other musicians was on hand to make the Chicks into a full studio band. While it’s a slight bummer that the Chicks don’t play their own electric guitar, I think it’s great that their guitar player’s name on this album is Pat Buchanan. Hey, he’s pretty “fly” for a white guy!

Website: http://www.dixiechicks.com

Participants in the “I’ll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours” Write-Off:
keithpruitt, kristinafh, buffoonery, ad-dollars, repulsemonkey, aggiebrett, shilmafone, kidhendrix, brotherman, e_burrell, kcfoxy, thevoid99, danielrf, adjensen, sleestakk, obiwanjabroni, saxguy, fm_hunter, chezon, pezking, matta75, phixed, dchefsours, annexation, monssfisch, kuuleimomi,flamepillar, dantesguide, sordid-1, magenta321, jennifernorth, jennjoy, gamblinfamily, vemartin, sparkospunky, kris-kochanski, given2flymike, roheblius, divad23 and monnie1976


Recommended: No

Great Music to Play While: Driving