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WHEN A SOUTHERN COURTHOUSE VIDEO TURNED A COUNTRY SONG INTO A NATIONAL LIGHTNING ROD FOR CONTROVERSY. THE SONG HAD BEEN OUT FOR TWO MONTHS BEFORE ANYONE FOUGHT ABOUT IT. THEN THE VIDEO ARRIVED. “Try That in a Small Town” was released in May 2023 and drew almost no attention. The fight started in July, when the video came out. It was shot in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, cut together with news footage of protests and flag-burning. In 1927 a white mob lynched an eighteen-year-old Black boy, Henry Choate, at that courthouse. The building was also central to the Columbia race riot of 1946. Critics called the video a dog whistle and worse. CMT pulled it from rotation within days. Sheryl Crow objected publicly. A Tennessee state lawmaker called on colleagues to condemn it. Aldean did not go quiet. He posted a long statement rejecting the reading outright — he said he could respect people having their own interpretations, but this one went too far. He said no lyric in the song referenced race, and called the pro-lynching accusation not just meritless but dangerous. The production company said Aldean hadn’t picked the courthouse at all, that it’s a routine filming location outside Nashville, used for everything down to a Hannah Montana movie. Governors and members of Congress lined up behind him. The song went to number one. Months later, on CBS Mornings, he was asked about the site again. He said he wasn’t going to go back a hundred years researching a building, that you’d be hard-pressed to find a Southern courthouse without some racial history. He added that it’s where he renews his car tags. Both of those things are true at once. That was the whole argument.

The Song Had Been Out for Two Months Before Anyone Fought About It. Then the Video Arrived.

For a while, Jason Aldean had a song that seemed to pass through the world without much heat. “Try That in a Small Town” was released in May 2023, and for weeks it lived mostly as another  country single moving through the usual channels. Then, in July, the  music video arrived, and the conversation changed almost overnight.

The video was the spark. It showed Jason Aldean performing in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, with scenes of protests, confrontation, and flag-burning cut into the footage. The location quickly became part of the story, because the courthouse is tied to painful local history, including the 1927 lynching of Henry Choate and the Columbia race riot of 1946. What had seemed like a small-town anthem suddenly became a national argument about symbolism, memory, and intent.

The reaction came fast

Critics accused the video of sending a dangerous message. Some called it a dog whistle. Others said the imagery could not be separated from the history of the place where it was filmed. CMT pulled the video from rotation within days, which only made the debate louder. Sheryl Crow objected publicly. A Tennessee state lawmaker also called on colleagues to condemn it.

Jason Aldean pushed back almost immediately. In a statement, he rejected the accusation that the song was a pro-lynching anthem. He argued that no lyric in the song directly referenced race, and he said the reading of the song had gone too far. The production company also said Jason Aldean had not personally chosen the courthouse, describing it as a routine filming location outside Nashville that had been used for many kinds of productions before.

Support came just as loudly

As critics sharpened their response, Jason Aldean found allies in high places. Governors and members of Congress lined up behind him, turning a music-video dispute into something bigger and more political. The attention did not hurt the song commercially. Instead, it climbed. The controversy helped drive “Try That in a Small Town” to the top of the charts, and the song went to number one.

Months later, Jason Aldean was asked about the courthouse again on CBS Mornings. He said he was not going to go back a hundred years researching a building. He also said that if people looked closely, they would be hard-pressed to find a Southern courthouse without some racial history. Then he added a detail that made the whole thing feel even more ordinary and more unsettling at the same time: it is where he renews his car tags.

Why the argument lasted

That is what made the story linger. Both things could be true at once. A courthouse can be a routine place where people handle everyday business. It can also be a site where history stays visible, whether anyone wants it there or not. The song, the video, the backlash, and the defense all seemed to circle that one tension.

In the end, the controversy was never only about one song. It was about what people see when they hear it, what they bring to the image, and what happens when a familiar place carries a difficult past into the present.

 

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