Brad Paisley Attempts to Explain 'Accidental Racist' Song, Fails Miserably

By Dodai Stewart  |  April 9, 2013 | 2:50pm
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Brad Paisley sat down with Ellen yesterday to discuss his new album, and she asked him about his lococrazyinsane and terrible new song, “Accidental Racist.” Paisley said:

“I don’t know if any of you noticed, but there is some racial tension, here and there. It kind of deals with that and I felt like when we were writing this song it wasn’t necessarily up to the media. I don’t really trust sort of, I guess, Hollywood … or sort of talk radio or anything like that to deal with that anymore. I think it’s music’s turn to have the conversation.”

Then Ellen prompted: “You’re basically saying…” And Paisley replied: “I don’t know.”

Right. That explains a lot.

Paisley went on: “We’re sort of asking the question of as a proud Southerner and he as a black New Yorker… One of my favorite lines in the song, he says, ‘I think the relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixing.’ Leave it to a rapper to put it so simply and so beautifully.”

It’s pretty clear that he has no idea how horribly the song fails in its message and how inappropriate it is. As Jamelle Bouie, staff writer at The American Prospect tweeted: “Defending Confederate flag as ‘Southern heritage’ writes black people out completely as Southerners.” And Paisley’s song does the same: LL Cool J is from New York. Would a black Southerner approve of lines like “If you forget my gold chains/I’ll forget the iron chains”?

In the end, Paisley said that anyone listening can “make your own mind up” and also joked that we should feel free to throw things at him, which won’t be necessary.

The episode of Ellen airs today.

Here’s the song, in case you were somehow lucky enough to miss it yesterday.

[Zap2It, Ellen, NYDN]

 
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