Jason Aldean connected his controversial song “Try that in a Small Town” to the Boston Marathon bombing during a concert in Massachusetts Saturday, a video posted on Twitter shows.
The song became controversial after many fans and others on social media accused him of encouraging violence and racism with the song’s lyrics.
“Got a gun that my granddad gave me. They say one day they’re gonna round up. Well, that sh** might fly in the city, good luck,” the lyrics state. “Try that in a small town. See how far ya make it down the road. Around here, we take care of our own.”
It was further criticized after the music video also included Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, which is where the 1927 lynching of Henry Choate took place. According to PEOPLE, Choate was an 18-year-old Black man accused of attacking a white woman. The video also included visuals of vandalism and riots. The videos are made to appear to take place during the 2020 racial injustice protests but some TikTok users have pointed out they are clips of stock footage from protests in other countries, the news outlet reported.
Aldean had claimed on Twitter that “there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage.”
After the backlash, The Washington Post reported that the music video was changed and the Fox 5 Atlanta clip during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest was removed.
“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. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences,” Aldean wrote on Twitter.
While performing at Xfinity Center in Mansfield on Saturday, he said those in Boston could connect to the song after the Boston Marathon bombings.
Brian Sullivan, a verified Twitter user, posted a video of Aldean talking about the song during the concert on Twitter.
“I was laying in bed last night and thinking to myself, you guys would get this better than anybody,” Aldean said in the video. “Because I remember a time, I think it was April of 2013 when the Boston Marathon bombings happened. You guys remember this, right? What I saw when that happened, was whole — not a small town, a big a** town — come together. No matter of your color … The whole country, and especially Boston, came together to find these two pricks that did that? And anybody, any of you guys that would’ve found those guys before the cops did, I know you guys from Boston, and you guys would’ve beat the s*** out of [them].”
The crowd could be heard cheering in the background.
He then states it’s “not about race.”
“It’s about people getting their sh** together,” he said, also bringing up safety in schools.
About two minutes into the speech, Aldean begins talking about “burning down buildings” and “costing taxpayers all this money, just for you to show that you’re p*** off. To me, I just don’t get that. We are just never going to see eye-to-eye on that.”
Arson, vandalism and looting after protests in 140 U.S. cities in 2020 resulted in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims, according to Axios. But a majority of the protests were peaceful.
The Washington Post reported 96.3% of events involved no property damage or police injuries and 97.7% of events had no injuries among participants, bystander or police. The news outlet also found that most of the violence that took place was actually directed against the Black Lives Matters protesters.
“These figures should correct the narrative that the protests were overtaken by rioting and vandalism or violence,” the Post reported. “Such claims are false. Incidents in which there was protester violence or property destruction should be regarded as exceptional — and not representative of the uprising as a whole.”
