"Not Ready to Make Nice"

The Dixie Chicks reputation has suffered ever since one of their European concerts in the early 2000’s. Natalie Maines made a comment about President George W. Bush about his decision into sending America and many other countries into war. In protest, almost all of their fans have deserted them and their names have been branded by the event ever since. The Dixie Chicks where shocked by the reaction and where asked to apologize, in particular Maines was asked specifically. However Maines said that apologizing to Bush would be her lifes greatest regret. But still their reputation was ruined and therefore the Dixie Chick recorded a song called “Not Ready to Make Nice”.

“Not Ready to Make Nice” is a song that was written by the Dixie Chicks as they thought that if they further explained their beliefs people would react differently. They wanted to tell he world how ridiculous they felt it was for people to react this way. This is shown in the quotation, “And how in the world can the words that I said / Send somebody so over the edge / That they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better / Shut up and sing or my life will be over”. They also wanted to show the audience how it was to be them and have to go through this.

Anger is a very prominent emotion felt in the song where they use words such as ‘hate’ and ‘shut up’. The Dixie Chicks seem to be outraged because of how people have shut them down because of their beliefs. The band felt that the reaction of people was immature. For an Example, “It’s a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her / Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger”. There is sadness there as well as Maines and the rest of the Dixie Chicks would have felt sad for how people have gotten so involved in such a bad way and they would have felt sad that a child has even gotten involved.

There are a total of 9 stanzas within the song consist of four lines each. Not Ready to Make Nice has an interesting rhyming scheme as such that in the first 2 stanzas the first two lines rhyme. In the chorus rhyme every second line. In the next stanza there is no appearance of any rhyming but in the next 2 stanzas, they rhyme on the last 2 lines. As you read on there is a use of repetition of stanzas and the first stanza of the song, is then repeated at the end of the song.

Similies such as “I made my bed and I sleep like a baby” this line talks about how even though everyone is angry about what Maines said she still has no regrets about what she said. This is confirmed in the next line, “With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’”. The Dixie Chicks are suggesting that they don’t regret the incident; they are not guilty at all – because they believe that it is the right thing.

The band uses different fortes of sound levels with the start of the song beginning softly and the middle of the song being quite loud and powerful. This is successful in the song because it really does enhance the emotion of the song and make the louder parts of the song really stand out. The audience now knows that they are really angry about it. Because when listerning to a song one does not always take in the lyrics to the change in volume would have put across their anger just as the lyrics did.

Overall the song is very powerful and emotional and really helps the listener to take in their beliefs and understand how it was for the band to be shut down like that. All they wanted was to have their opinions heard and this song helps them to do that.