Dear Gossips,

I wrote last week about how it seems to be new music/music video season and that continues this week with new releases from several more artists (and seemingly daily drops by BTS) including… 

DIXIE CHICKS!

“GASLIGHTER!”

Gaslighter is also the title of the new album coming in May, their first since 2006. So we’ve been waiting – and they f-cking delivered. “Gaslighter” is a banger, it’s good right away the first time you hear it, and it keeps growing and growing every time afterwards. What’s amazing too is that a song that sounds so exuberant is actually an angry raging fire. They are PISSED. Natalie is PISSED. And while, specifically, Natalie is singing about her ex-husband Adrian Pasdar, you can if you want extend “Gaslighter” and apply it to the way we’ve been using the word in the greater culture, especially if you watch the video. 

That said… this is unmistakably a callout. Just a reminder, during divorce proceedings last year, Adrian wanted access to Natalie’s music and attempted to block it, claiming that some of the lyrics violated their prenuptial agreement even though just a few months prior, he wanted the prenup invalidated. 

And now here we are, the Dixie Chicks are back with new music and a song that leaves no doubt about how Natalie feels although there is one question we’re all now curious about:

What did Adrian do on her boat?!

Maybe she’ll tell us on one of the other songs off the album but you know, if we’re talking about women called “Natalie” and what happened on a boat, she wouldn’t be only one. Did anyone else’s mind go there or am I just a dark twisted asshole? Probably. But he knows what he did. He made his bed and his bed caught fire. F-ck, that’s a great lyric! 

And we haven’t even gotten to the video, really. They’re magnificent in the video. And they way Emily and Martie have their hands on Natalie’s shoulders, flanking her as she’s telling that f-cker about himself off the top of the track, the camera pulling out to reveal their smug, satisfied expressions, because they know everything and they’re here to say, we see you, you piece of sh-t, and she’s got us… I want to cry from the power of it. At the 0:53 second mark, Emily glances down at Natalie right when she’s singing “lie lie liar” like she couldn’t be more goddamn delighted at being a part of this and it pretty much says everything you’ve ever wanted to say on behalf of a friend you would fight to the end for. 

“You broke me
Yeah I’m broken…”

 

That’s what Natalie sings in the bridge. But, really, is she? It’s one thing to hear it, but in the video, at the 3 minute mark, when she’s in black and white staring straight to camera and she delivers that line, “yeah I’m broken”, she doesn’t look broken. She looks like she’s being sarcastic. Like, OK dude, I’m the one who’s broken? Sure, let’s go with that. I’ll be over here with my new album coming out in May. 

This, that right there, is the energy. 

It’s 2020 and the Dixie Chicks have returned. Play it all day long. 

 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey