Jason Aldean has edited the video of his anti-woke hit “Try That in a Small Town,” which has been the object of more than a week of furious denunciation as supposedly promoting racism and vigilantism.
Multiple news outlets reported Wednesday that the video on Mr. Aldean’s official YouTube channel is about seven seconds shorter than before and missing a couple of the most widely criticized images.
NBC News reported that one of the missing shots involves the Atlanta Fox-TV station’s footage of a Black Lives Matter protest being projected onto a Tennessee courthouse where, nearly a century ago, a Black man was lynched.
Liberal commentators have cited the use of that Columbia, Tennessee, courthouse as racist.
However, according to a Newsweek article that comprehensively details the changes, it appears more likely that rights issues from Fox 5 in Atlanta were the issue, not a political cave-in.
“Fox 5 footage featuring protesters and a chyron reading ‘State of Emergency Declared in Georgia’ also appeared at the 1:21 mark in the original video. The new version replaces the footage with additional images of Aldean and his band performing outside the courthouse,” Newsweek wrote.
The song, backed by a video that went online earlier this month, skewers the riots and rampant crime in America’s big cities, saying it wouldn’t happen in rural America.
“Well, try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road / Around here, we take care of our own … I recommend you don’t / Try that in a small town,” the song states.
Neither Mr. Aldean, his label or Fox-5 had any official comment or explanation Wednesday afternoon.
But Mr. Aldean has furiously denied the lyrics to “Try That in a Small Town” are racist and his defenders have noted that the courthouse has been used as a setting for numerous pop-culture products in the last century, including the Lifetime movie “Steppin’ Into the Holiday” and Disney’s “Hannah Montana: The Movie.”
“These references are not only meritless, but dangerous. There is 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,” Mr. Aldean said last week in a statement posted to Twitter.
“While I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far,” he said.
The anti-woke backlash in favor of the song, which began in earnest when CMT pulled the video, has made it one of the year’s biggest hits though, rocketing it to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the U.S. iTunes chart.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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