"Not Ready to Make Nice" is a song co-written and performed by American country music trio Dixie Chicks. It was released in March 20, 2006 as the first single from the band's seventh studio album, Taking the Long Way. The Dixie Chicks wrote the song in response to the backlash they experienced in 2003 after criticizing President George W. Bush.
"Not Ready to Make Nice" remains the Dixie Chicks' biggest hit in Canada—it is their only song to be certified 2× Platinum and reach the top five on the Hot 100 (they have had bigger hits on the country charts). The song was written by Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire, Emily Robison, and Dan Wilson.
On February 11, 2007, it won three Grammy Awards in the categories of Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. In 2009, Rolling Stone named "Not Ready to Make Nice" the 77th best song of the decade.
Background
Controversy erupted over the Dixie Chicks in 2003 following a critical comment vocalist Natalie Maines made about American President George W. Bush while performing in a concert in London, United Kingdom. In relation to the forthcoming invasion of Iraq, Maines said, "...we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
Taking the Long Way was the first studio album released by the Dixie Chicks following the controversy, the band's reaction to which forms the major theme of some of the songs in the album. Most notable among these is "Not Ready to Make Nice", which was written by all three band members (Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire) along with Dan Wilson, as an expression of band's reaction to the banning of their songs from country music radio stations, and their thoughts on freedom of speech.
The band went on to the October 25 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote the documentary film Shut Up and Sing and the music video of the song was quickly shown. While interviewing the band, Winfrey said the song is so well written that someone cannot even tell if it concerns the controversy. Indeed, Maines said that she and the other songwriters wanted the song to have a universal interpretation. However, the final lines of the fourth verse are unequivocally about the death threats the band received during the 2003 Top of the World Tour:
"And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over."
Some other lines in the beginning of this same verse are about a scene featured in the documentary Shut Up and Sing, in which a mother, who was protesting the Dixie Chicks at one of their concerts, is goading her young child to say "screw 'em!":
"It's a sad sad story
When a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought'a hate a perfect stranger."
In the song, "daughter" was used instead of "son" as a matter of poetic license.
Comments by band members
The band members released their comments about writing the songs of Taking the Long Way through the website Frontpage Publicity. They commented the following about "Not Ready to Make Nice":
Emily: "The stakes were definitely higher on that song. We knew it was special because it was so autobiographical, and we had to get it right. We've all gone through so many emotions about the incident. We talked for days with Dan before putting pen to paper, and he really helped get inside our heads and put these feelings out. And once we had this song done, it freed us up to do the rest of the album without that burden." Martie: "We had reached a point where we were laughing a lot about it, and people didn't really know how far it had gone. I realized I had suppressed a lot about the death threat. It all came flooding back in the process of writing this song, I think we all realized just how painful it had been for us.." Natalie: "We tried to write about the incident a few times, but you get nervous that you're being too preachy or too victimized or too nonchalant. Dan came in with an idea that was some kind of concession, more 'can't we all just get along?' and I said, nope, I can't say that, can't do it. And we talked about it, and he said, what about "I'm not ready to make nice?" From the outside, normal people really weren't aware of how bizarre and absurd it got. Dan was really good at cluing in to that, saying something that didn't back down, but still had a vulnerability to it. This album was therapy. To write these songs allowed me to find peace with everything and move on."