THE DIXIE CHICKS ARE BACK ON TOP!

All I can say is “FINALLY!” Why, you may be asking, am I whooping for joy in my bedroom? Because The Dixie Chicks have (IMHO) FINALLY released another BRILLIANT album!!!!!

I totally fell in love with the Chicks back in 1998 with their major label debut Wide Open Spaces. The CD was literally stuck in my player for over a year, I know all the songs backwards and it generally rocks my ass! Then came Fly. Sorry, I was disappointed. VERY disappointed. Then came Home. Couple of good tracks, (‘Landslide’ in particular) but again, generally disappointed. But now, beating up on my ‘person I hate the most but who isn’t a total Nazi’, President Bush, seems to have got the Chicks all riled up and busting out some HOT HOT tunes!

Taking The Long Way's lead single ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ quite literally says it all. Natalie’s impassioned near-screaming vocals on the bridge make my heart lift in a way that can only come from the feeling of revolution and vindication. Okay, she’s not Martin Luther King, or even Jesus, but bloody hell she’s saying what so many of us have been thinking! She had the guts (and the brain) to say she was less than impressed with Bush and then had the BALLS to tell the right-wing mentalists that took it way too personally that she had a right to her opinions and was sticking by them! WOHOOO! Despite receiving death threats from ‘fans’, rocking their Republican fanbase and being told their careers were over, millions of us have stuck by the girls and have been truly rewarded with their latest record.

The rest of the album is outstanding, with great attention to song structure and harmony arrangements that carry tracks like ‘Silent House’ and ‘Lullaby’ far beyond brilliant. Opening title track ‘Long Way Around’ is a real country-rock stomper, full of the ‘big dream’ lyrics I loved so much about Wide Open Spaces.

This album is more than a return to form, it is proof that rock, passion, politics and country twangs can sound as thrilling today as the revolution songs of the sixties and seventies did.

BUY THIS ALBUM NOW! It will carry you down the highways this summer with a smile permanently affixed to your face! Of course, I’d also recommend you buy Wide Open Spaces and here’s a taster to tantalize your taste buds and leave you begging for more!


Wide Open Spaces

Silent House

The Long Way Around

Check out the girls’ myspace: www.myspace.com/dixiechicks to hear ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ and ‘Everybody Knows’ from the new record, and two older tracks.

And for all you revolutionaries out there, here are the lyrics for ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ – read them and weep Bush-ites!

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting.

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price and I’ll keep paying

Cos I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
Cos I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said why can’t you just get over it?
It turned my whole life around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
Have no regrets and I don’t mind saying
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach
Her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I’ve said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
Cos I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Lyrics by The Dixie Chicks