Gene Lyons on that obnoxious song people are understandably griping about

Gene Lyons, a country music fan and former Arkansas rancher (among other things), has a spot-on column about the country song that's made news over the last week or so celebrating small towns because they are supposedly full of white guys tripping out on Oxycontin or fentanyl looking for an excuse to be vigilantes:

For all the hubbub about Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” what surprised me is what a terrible country song it is: tuneless, witless and mumbled more than sung. Absent ginned-up controversy and MAGA cheerleading, it would fade into obscurity as surely as Aldean’s previous single, “That’s What Tequila Does,” which topped out at No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100.¹

Gene's is a Merle Haggard fan and mentions “Okie from Muskogee” in the column.

When Merle would play in the San Francisco Bay area, the favorite song was always "Okie from Muskogee." And the audience - most of them stoned on pot and/or beer - would sing along enthusiastically, especially on the "like the hippies out in San Francisco do." Merle's reaction to J***n A****n's song would have been something along the lines of "that fool couldn't even find America on a map." I imagine Johnny Cash's would have been something like, "That guy is an a*****e."

1. Lyons, Gene (2023): Protests give Jason Aldean too much credit for his terrible country song. Chicago Sun-Times 07/28/2023. <https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2023/7/28/23809809/jason-aldean-protests-try-that-in-a-small-town-country-music-racism-violence-gene-lyons> (Accessed 28-07-2023).