CMT has pulled a music video for a Jason Aldean song as criticism of the lyrics and music video continue to mount, the network confirmed to multiple outlets.
The song, "Try That in a Small Town," was first released in May, but has received an increase in visibility — and criticism — after the accompanying music video was released on July 14.
The music video includes footage from surveillance store security cameras showing robberies and shots from protests against police brutality. Critics claim the song includes lyrics that promote violence and vigilantism. At one point, Aldean sings about the "gun that my granddad gave me" and alludes to gun control measures.
Alongside the lyrics, critics pointed out that the music video was shot in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. The courthouse was the site of the 1927 lynching of Henry Choate, a Black man, and the Columbia Race Riot in 1946, among other incidents of racial violence.
Some have gone as far as likening it to a song about lynching.
On Tuesday, a day after the song was pulled from the air, country singer Sheryl Crow tweeted a rebuke of its message.
"I'm from a small town. Even people in small towns are sick of violence," Crow wrote. "There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. You should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting. This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.”
Aldean took to Twitter Tuesday, doubling down on the song's messaging but denying that it was a call to violence or aimed at any particular race.
"Try That In A Small Town, for me, 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," Aldean wrote. "Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences. My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this Country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it to- that’s what this song is about."
Aldean is not listed as a writer on the song.
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