WASHINGTON — The controversial music video for country singer Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" has been edited to remove several seconds of footage from Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Aldean’s video received heavy criticism online, with some claiming the visual is a “dog whistle” and others labeling it “pro-lynching.”
The edits remove about six seconds of footage from the 2020 protests against police brutality and racism. The updated version no longer contains clips from Fox 5 Atlanta depicting violent confrontations between protesters and police during the demonstrations.
According to the Washington Post, which was first to report on the changes Tuesday, other updates appear to have been made over the past week and the video is now six seconds shorter than when it was first uploaded, although it's unclear exactly when those changes were made, or who asked for the edits.
In the original, portions of the news clip appeared several times, including once being projected on the side of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. The courthouse was the site of the 1927 lynching of Henry Choate, a Black man, and the Columbia Race Riot in 1946, among other incidents of racial violence.
Toward the beginning of the video, one section that used to show images of the broadcast projected onto the side of the courthouse has been replaced with a close-up clip of a person lighting a Molotov cocktail.
Aldean used the courthouse as a backdrop to sing about crimes that wouldn't be tolerated in small towns. At one point, he sings about the "gun that my granddad gave me" and alludes to gun control measures.
As part of the song Aldean sings:
“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you’re tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town.”
Critics claim the song includes lyrics that promote violence and vigilantism. Some have gone as far as likening it to a song about lynching.
The original song was released in May, but controversy was ignited when the music video was released on July 14. It lasted only a weekend, albeit getting heavy play time, before being pulled from the air by the Country Music Television network.
When the song was first released, Aldean promoted it by saying on Twitter that it "summarizes the way a lot of people feel about the world right now."
He has continued to defend the song and music video in light of the controversy, writing on Twitter after it was removed from CMT's airtime to deny allegations that the music video was a call to violence or had racist undertones.
"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," Aldean wrote. "Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences. My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this Country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it to- that’s what this song is about."
Aldean is not listed as a writer on the song.
Others in the music industry have criticized Aldean for what they see as promoting violence, especially given his history with surviving a mass shooting.
Country singer Sheryl Crow was one of the highest-profile critics, tweeting a rebuke of the song's message shortly after it was pulled from TV.
"I'm from a small town. Even people in small towns are sick of violence," Crow wrote. "There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. You should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting. This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.”
Crow was born in Kennett, Missouri, which has a population of around 10,000 people. Aldean was raised in the mid-sized city of Macon, Georgia, which has a population of about 153,000.
She also referenced Aldean's experience at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival in 2017. While he was performing on stage, a gunman began firing into the crowd from a hotel nearby, killing 58 people.
Despite the music video's controversy, or perhaps because of it, the song has surged in popularity, according to Billboard.
“Try That in a Small Town” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week just behind BTS’s Jung Kook solo single “Seven,” featuring Latto. The track experienced the biggest sales week for a country song in over 10 years.
According to Luminate, the song hit 11.7 million on-demand audio and video streams between July 14 and 20, marking a 1,000% increase from the previous week. Prior to the music video release on July 14, the track accounted for 987,000 streams in the U.S.
Digital song sales increased from 1,000 to 228,000, in those same weeks, respectively.
At a concert in Cincinnati on July 21, Aldean said he wouldn't back down from the criticism, saying he would continue to play "Try That in a Small Town" because fans wanted him to.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Hey man, do you think you’re going to play this song tonight?’” he told the stadium crowd. “The answer was simple. The people have spoken and you guys spoke very, very loudly this week.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.