Zac Brown of Zac Brown Band performs onstage at the Bud Light Hotel on February 1, 2014 in New York City.
The lady wrote that she was "disappointed" in the lyrics to "Whiskey's Gone" and "disgusted with the language used" in the song. She went on to say that her grandchildren would no longer be allowed to listen to their music in her home or presence. She ended the post with the hope that in the future, they would "make better choices in the words you choose to write with!"
- Get the lyrics to "Whiskey's Gone" here
While yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, the post brings to mind some questions ...
Where is the incentive to change? If you announce that you are done with a band, product, etc., because you don't like something they've done, do you really give them any incentive to change? They've already lost you as a fan so doing "better" in the future won't have any impact on you because you're as gone as the whiskey Zac sings about.
Is one song really enough to make a final determination of your level of fanhood? When you hear a new song on the radio that you like, do you immediately run out and buy the band's entire catalog, declaring yourself to be a "super fan?" One song may pique your interest to dig a little deeper, but one tune isn't enough to propel you to true-blue fan status. By the same token, one song you don't like usually isn't enough to cause you to swear off of everything that the band has released or will release. Ask yourself this - how many CDs have you bought where you simply adored every single song on the project? Probably not very many as most folks have their faves on any project and the rest are "take it or leave it" tunes.
Does the context of the song make certain words OK or are all curse words and off-color phrases off limits? In "Whiskey's Gone," Zac is singing about a man who's wife/girlfriend just kicked him out and he's trying to drink his blues away. He's been cheating on her and she says she's not coming back until his "sorry a**" is gone. The context here is spot on enough to make that one play like real life would. In all truthfulness, a woman who has been cheated on only calling him an a** is mild. The other words/phrases are the (again, mild) ramblings of a drunk ... The bartender told me it was time to go / I told him that he could lick my sack., I can drive / Nah I can drive / Ooohh... Sh*t.. and Looking through the bare glass / Bald head chapped a** gone... Have you ever sat and listened to someone who was trashed? 'Nuff said! Unlike a lot of rap songs that are wildly popular today, these aren't expletives thrown in just for space (think Lil Wayne's "Believe Me" with the N-word making an appearance 25 times and the F bomb being dropped 7 times!).
Does social media make it OK to call a band out publicly? Back in the days before Facebook, Twitter and Google+, before the internet was even a word people used, in order to say something to a band, you had to look on the back of one of their records, hope you could find a fan club address, write an actual letter and send it in the mail. Someone in the band's camp might even read it and write you back. But that was it. Your kudo or complaint was between you and the band. Now with social media, complaints are thrown out for the entire world to see. Detractors can become "internet famous" overnight and sadly, one person's thoughts can be a prod that leads someone else who is looking for attention to flat out lie. (Think Conor Oberst ... Last December, someone posted a story on a website about dating a rock star and being abused by him. A woman looking for attention commented on the story, sharing that she had been raped by Conor. Seven months later, she admitted she was lying but for those seven months, imagine what Oberst went through.)
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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