Sheryl Crow is stepping into the conversation being from a small town and calling out Jason Aldean after the country star was accused of promoting violence with the song “Try That in a Small Town.”
“Jason Aldean, I’m from a small town. Even people in small towns are sick of violence,” Crow tweeted mentioning his colleague. “There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. You should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting.”
Crow continued, “This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.”
Crow quoted a tweet that mentioned Aldean was in a mass shooting back in 2017 when he was performing in Las Vegas. The shooter killed 60 people and injured over 400 concertgoers.
Aldean’s music video for “Try That in a Small Town” has been removed from the CMT programming after backlash. In the video, the singer is seen performing in front of an infamous courthouse known for lynchings.
Lyrics for the song say “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face, stomp on the flag and light it up, yeah, ya think you’re tough, well, try that in a small town, see how far ya make it down the road.” In another part of the song, Aldean sings, “got a gun that my granddad gave me, they say one day they’re gonna round up, well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck.”
Aldean has denied that his song incites pro-lynching and says that “not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far.”
In his statement on Twitter, Aldean said the song “refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences.”