DAY 22: DEAR SECOND CHANCE

Dear Natalie,

I am writing you this letter because today's letter goes out to someone I would like to give a second chance. There isn't anyone in my personal life that I haven't 1) already attempted that with, and succeeded or failed, or 2) I am not interested in giving them a second chance. By mutual agreement, we are done. So, I spent some time wracking my brain and came up with you.

Let me say this first: your voice is incredible. When the Dixie Chicks chose you as their singer they picked a winner. You are so amazing that I got some of my friends who claimed that they would never listen to country music under any circumstances listening to you. You blew them away. It was like putting crack in their country, shaking it all up, and the result was a bunch of addicts. But in a good way. It was still country, but it sizzled it was so hot.

You were so high up that you didn't realize how hard that fall could be. It was a freakin' long way down. The thing that you should have known about Americans, because you are one is this: you can air your political opinions, but it will piss off about half of the people in the country. However, about a quarter of them will have the good sense to realize that you are entitled to your opinion and free speech thanks to The Constitution, and might not like what you have to say, but will die for your right to say it. You change the ballgame when you trash talk your country while on tour in another country. In other words, you don't talk sh*t about America when you aren't in America. The fact that you didn't have the foresight to see your career go down the drain as a result of that fatal error amazes me even now. I think you started to get the picture when people were burning your CDs and saying that the love affair with the Chicks was over. I know you were hoping that it was a "this too, shall pass" sort of thing. It didn't pass.

I didn't burn my CDs. I am not so naive as to think that celebrities are smarter than the general public. In fact, I don't think they are. They just have a microphone and an audience. The smart ones keep their religious and political opinions to themselves. The way I see it, or in this case, saw it, you were sharing your opinion. It was one person's opinion. It was not representational of anything. No one elected you to office, so you were not speaking out on behalf of anyone but yourself. The fact that you chose to dis your country in another country was just stupid. Were you drunk? I am thinking that maybe you had been drinking and your judgment was impaired.

Apparently, the American people didn't quit with the record burning. I guess you got lots of hate mail after that incident, too. When you piss someone off, you do it in a really big way.

You and your team had some serious thinking to do here. This was the time to spin. How do you spin it? Well, you came out fists raised with the song NOT READY TO MAKE NICE. I gotta admit that I liked the song, but I don't think it was the way to go. You effed this up really badly, and saying that you're not going to play nicely with others just wasn't the best message to come out of the cage with, armed to the teeth, guns blazing. That was the one and only single released off of that record, and then it died a slow, lingering death. Or maybe it was quick and painful. Not sure. It just dropped off the map and out of site. Natalie Maines, country superstar, turned into a bad word that stopped conversations in their tracks, and became whispers in hallways of Nashville's underground. Too risky. Natalie Maines: she made and broke the Dixie Chicks with poorly chosen words at a concert. It happened in the blink of an eye. The hottest country band went from the top to the bottom. Splat.

I saw on Amazon that the original Chicks came out with a new record in April of this year. You were nowhere to be seen. But then neither are they. Splat.

I would still give you a second chance. I think the people would have given you a second chance if you had come out with a record that was about the music. No one cares about your politics. Had you reminded them of what a great musician you are, it would have blown over. Instead, you had to rub their faces in it. Tell them how right you were. The thing is that it didn't matter. Now that you are sitting at home thinking about the career you could have had, does your rightness mean anything at all? Or do you just miss the music? You cut off your nose to spite your face. If another chance comes your way, focus on the music, and forget about how important it is to be right all of the time. Nobody cares.

Sincerely,
Robin


Don't forget to turn off my music player at the bottom of the page...
P.S.
This is you at your best:




This is the song that you should have written, to get it out of your system, but not put on a record:





image robbed from Miss Angie at My So-Called Chaos