TThe hit song “Not Ready to Make Nice” by The Chicks (formerly known as Dixie Chicks) has been making the rounds on TikTok in recent weeks after conservative users posted videos using the song to protest Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy in the 2024 presidential election and express their support for the Republican Party.
Some TikTokers have posted videos singing along to lyrics like, “And how in the world / could the words I said / upset someone so much / that they’d write me a letter / telling me I better shut up and sing / or my life is over?” while the song plays in the background. Others have also added text to their videos, such as, “I’m using this song because this is exactly how the Liberal Party treats us conservatives,” or posted the videos with hashtags like “#trump” and “#useyourvoice.”
But as the videos gained popularity, liberal TikTokers responded by calling out people who didn’t understand the political context behind the song, which was released in 2006 as a direct response to criticism The Chicks faced for their lack of support for the Iraq War.
“Media literacy is so (dead) when the people at the magazine don’t know the story of this song and The Chicks because this song is about people like THEM,” one user wrote in a TikTok.
On March 10, 2003 – a few days before the US invasion of Iraq – the Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines, who comes from Texas, said on a stage in London: “We don’t want this war, this violence and we are ashamed that the President of the United States comes from Texas.”
After news outlets reported Maine’s comments, many of the group’s fans, who supported Republican President George W. Bush, erupted in outrage. The Chicks were at the top of the country music world at the time, says Marissa R. Moss, music journalist and author of Their Country: How the women of country music achieved the success they never expected. But after Maines’ comments, country radio stations stopped playing her music as thousands of people called to complain about the group. The group even received death threats. While Maines initially apologized for her disrespect for the office of the president, she later retracted her apology.
“Not Ready to Make Nice” was written by all three band members – Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire – along with singer-songwriter Dan Wilson. The song includes lyrics such as: “I’m not ready to make nice / I’m not ready to give in / I’m still mad as hell.” Maines previously described the album on which the song appears as “pure therapy” (the Chicks’ PR team did not respond to a request for comment).
Moss says she considers Maines’ remarks to be “one of the most significant events in the history of country music” and the song to be “one of the most important protest songs of the modern era.”
“Not only were their lives made unbearable, not only were their lives financially impacted, not only was their creativity stifled, but their physical safety and the safety of their families was threatened,” says Moss. And yet – “They literally said no, we are not going to apologize.”
“Not Ready to Make Nice” became a hit and won three Grammy Awards. Moss says the song showed artists that they can “speak their mind” and get backlash for it, but still “come back” and make music and find an audience that appreciates it.
Moss finds it “ironic” that conservatives are now using the song on social media to express their support for the Republican Party. She says there is a “long tradition” of assuming that all country musicians or artists share conservative values - so many people have misunderstood Martina McBride’s song “Independence Day” as a patriotic anthem when it is actually a song about domestic violence, Moss says.
“They’re using a song … by women that stands for everything they’re supposedly against,” Moss says of the conservative TikTokers who use “Not Ready to Make Nice” to protest the Democratic Party. “Maybe everyone needs to do a little more research and maybe they’ll gain some empathy from this experience.”
