3:31
single, 2024
Written by Nicolle Galyon, Will Bundy, Ellie Balkcom, Lily Balkcom and Powell Balkcom
The Castellows are a traditional country-bluegrass trio of sisters from Georgia. This song personifies America as a country girl who headed west, left her roots, "got Rocky Mountain high," and got a little gritty and dirty in the city. Then it laments How Things Used to be Better Before Something Undefinable But Probably Progressive Happened: "But I miss America, on her front porch / Before she ever had to lock her doors / When she was still outspoken / Back before her heart got broken." It's a nice image— a free-spirited Southern woman who's lost her way but might yet rediscover the identity she always meant to have. But beneath the lovely harmonies and nostalgic twang, it's uncomfortably close to hillbilly white-pride sentiment. And that "when she was still outspoken" line? People who long for a time before they had to worry about all those nasty immigrants never stopped speaking out. A deceptively pretty song, but really just a softer, subtler "Try That in a Small Town."
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