Songs of the Year

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

-From "Not Ready to Make Nice," written by Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire, Emily Robinson, and Dan Wilson

In late 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush was preparing the nation for war with Iraq, there were a small handful of us who were against such a move. In the aftermath of 9/11 we felt that America's best interests would be served by keeping our eye on the ball...by remaining in Afghanistan, continuing the hunt for Osama bin Laden (remember him, Mr. President?), and using the opportunity there to attempt to plant the seeds of democracy in the Middle East.

We were all for "taking this battle to them" so that the moderates of the region could be propped up and the radical fringe soundly defeated. Again...in Afghanistan.

Iraq had nothing (n-o-t-h-i-n-g) to do with the attacks of 9/11. Intelligence showed this. The President's own terrorism chief told him this. Yet, Mr. Bush insisted that his administration figure out a way to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11.

Based on that trumped up "evidence," the country rallied around their president. Better safe than sorry, they thought...especially if Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. Never mind evidence to the contrary; and never mind predictions from experts who said if a war wasn't done just right, the region would fall into chaos.

It was based on that contrary evidence and based on the those experts' predictions that a small minority of Americans spoke out against going to war with Iraq. We knew this president didn't have it in him. We knew he wasn't up to the task.

Did we want to be proven wrong? Hell, yes. With all of our beings. But from the early planning stages it was evident the Bush administration wasn't ready for what was coming.

And those of us who spoke out against the coming war were scolded and scorned - even by friends and family on the same side of the political spectrum as us. "Better safe than sorry," they said; "How do you know the President is wrong?!" they insisted.

We knew.

Call it a gut hunch, call it luck, call it logical thinking. Either way, at the time we were labeled unpatriotic and were looked down upon because we weren't ready to follow our lackluster leader blindly off a cliff.

In a much celebrated case of saying what we thought about the war publicly, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks made a comment about how ashamed she was that George W. Bush was from her home state of Texas. The resulting fervor was a case-study in anti-Americanism. The Dixie Chicks' songs were banned from radio airplay, their CDs were destroyed in public displays of hatred, and death threats were made.

I guess freedom of speech is only supposed to apply when you agree with a president of the Republican Party.

Fast forward to 2006. The President is bogged down in an Iraqi civil war, 3,000 American soldiers have paid the ultimate price for Bush's misguided war, and Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. (As a matter of fact he had hardly any weapons of any kind.) Those who were against the war...we saw this coming from a hundred miles away, and no one listened. Only now do large majorities of Americans realize that going to Iraq was the wrong move.

Back to the Dixie Chicks...and so when I first heard "Not Ready to Make Nice," the Dixie Chicks' first single since 2002, it was quite cathartic. How dare anyone call those of us who spoke against the President's policy unpatriotic! As an American I couldn't have been more insulted. Beat us down for exercising our right to criticize our government when we know they're wrong? That's about as un-American as you can get.

Forgive me for babbling on, but the whole thing still unsettles me. It's still a bit raw. As Ms. Maines sings in her superb song:

Forgive?
Sounds good.
Forget?
I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything.
But I'm still waiting.

I'm sure time will heal things. We are, after all, the United States of America.

The Best Song of 2006 is "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks:



Runners-up (in no particular order):
"Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" by Susan Tedeschi


"Love Show" by Skye Edwards


"Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer


"Upside Down" by Jack Johnson


"Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley