So, instead of “Undivided,” the Chicks and Wilson wrote “Not Ready to Make Nice.” In its demo version, included on the 20th-anniversary reissue, the song is emotional and politely affecting. Maines’ voice sounds great, and Maguire’s grand viola break after the bridge adds requisite drama. But it also feels gentle and yielding; when Maines sings that she’s “not ready to back down,” it sounds more like plea than threat.
The finished product is gutting. If there is a more cathartic song, I don’t know it. It’s hard to articulate what makes the song great without also making it sound kind of goofy, because it’s far more than the sum of its parts: A backing band that includes Chad Smith dialing everything to 11, Matt Sweeney, Wilson, and Louris; an orchestra to beef up Maguire’s cutting viola; Maines’ most urgent, emotive vocal performance ever. “Not Ready to Make Nice” is so visceral and so arresting that it’s hard to remember that it was a radio hit: Time seems to stop as Maines barrels through the song’s dizzying bridge. Sometimes, maybe once in every eight plays, the track scans as pure camp to me. But really, how are you going to write a song about fearing you’ll be shot onstage and not give it such a glossy maximalist treatment? It is a once-in-a-lifetime song for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“Not Ready to Make Nice” won the Chicks a new, more mainstream audience, peaking at No. 4 on the Hot 100. Taking the Long Way and “Not Ready to Make Nice” swept the subsequent Grammys, too, although the Chicks were hardly welcome back at the CMAs. It would have been a triumphant story if not for the fact that their career remained decimated. After Taking the Long Way, the Chicks effectively retired: Although they sold out a Canadian tour with unprecedented speed, they were still struggling to sell tickets in many of the American cities where they used to pack out arenas. It would be a decade before they toured domestically again, and another four years after that before they released another album. The band’s outspokenness became a cautionary tale: Taylor Swift has said that her resistance to political speech is the direct result of being told, as a young artist, not to blow up her career like they did.
But if you’re on the way out—and you know you’re on the way out—why not go in a blaze of glory? Taking the Long Way is a harsher, wilder beast than any of the Chicks’ other records, and it takes bigger swings both lyrically and musically. It’s their best album if you’re not a country purist, and it’s also a musical catch-22: “The incident” made the Chicks more confident, brazen writers, and it unlocked what felt like a new avenue for their artistry; if not for that, they might have had the commercial support to continue exploring that path. Gaslighter, released 14 years later, unveiled a band that was older, wiser, and bitchier; it would have been exciting to see that transformation occur in real time. Still, Taking the Long Way earned the band’s retreat from the public eye. The Chicks became a cautionary tale, sure—but, as with everything else, they did it on their own terms.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
