The Dixie Chicks are back after taking the long way around

In one night with just one sentence, Natalie Maines nearly derailed her band’s career.

It was March 2003. The Dixie Chicks were on stage in London, and Maines made a remark during the act’s set that infuriated a lot of people.

The lead singer was introducing a song called “Travelin’ Soldier,” a tune that’s more moving than political.

The simple acoustic ballad follows a Vietnam War-era couple from their first encounter, through bootcamp and deployment and ends with the soldier dying. The song speaks for itself.

At the time, tensions were high in the Middle East. President George W. Bush claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and American intervention seemed inevitable. Maines didn’t agree with the president’s foreign policy, and she chose that moment to speak her mind.

“Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence,” said Maines. If she’d left it at that, everything probably would have been fine. Instead, she then took aim at the commander in chief, adding, “and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”

That last remark started a war of its own. When word made it back to the States, the trio tried to defuse the situation by issuing a statement on its website, explaining it was frustrated because the president was “ignoring the opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world.”

A few days later, Maines apologized to the president directly, admitting that her “remark was disrespectful.” She then attempted to offer more insight into her opinion. “While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children and American soldiers’ lives are lost,” she said. “I love my country. I am a proud American.”

But by then the damage was done. Maines’ words had a devastating effect on the rising country act. At the time, the Dixie Chicks had the top-selling album, and it was getting lots of airplay. By the end of that week, the band’s songs began being pulled from playlists all over the country, reportedly at the insistence of angry fans.

Things didn’t get any better for the band in the ensuing months. In May 2003, Maines and her bandmates — Emile Robison and Martie Maguire — appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. They were nude with words such as “traitors,” “Dixie sluts” and “Saddam’s angels” stenciled on their bodies, alongside words such as “brave,” opinionated” and “free speech,” presumably inspired by feedback they’d received.

While the Dixie Chicks were obviously not the first popular act to make such polarizing political statements, they were the most high-profile country group to do so at the time. And unlike the artists who preceded them, the Dixie Chicks didn’t make music that reflected their frustration.

Since the days of Woody Guthrie, who once famously scrawled the words “this machine kills fascists” on his guitar, countless artists have expressed themselves with protest songs. A lengthy list of legendary songwriters — Bob Dylan, most notably — wrote songs that were far more provocative than what Maines expressed.

In “Masters of War,” for instance, Dylan expressed similar sentiments: “You fasten all the triggers for the others to fire / Then you sit back and watch when the death count gets higher / You hide in your mansion while the young people’s blood flows out of their bodies / And is buried in the mud.”

Dylan ends the song by wishing death upon the warmongers, making Maines’ stage banter seem tame by comparison.

Fact is, had the band let its music do the talking, its sentiments might not have seemed so jarring. Although the Dixie Chicks stood firm in their convictions, eventually they got tired of talking.

In 2006, the group came out with an album that tapped directly into its frustration. And while it wasn’t necessarily political, it reflected the Dixie Chicks’ experience. “Taking the Long Way,” produced by Rick Rubin and documented in the film “Shut Up and Sing,” made it clear where the group stood.

Songs like “Not Ready to Make Nice,” with lines like, “I’m not ready to make nice / I’m not ready to back down / I’m still mad as hell, and I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round,” gave context to lines like these from the title track: “It’s been two long years now / Since the top of the world came crashing down / And I’m getting it back on the road now / But I’m taking the long way around.”

“Taking the Long Way” didn’t win back all of the group’s fans, but it did earn five Grammys, heaps of acclaim and even more respect. Everything’s back on for the Dixie Chicks, and they’re as outspoken as ever.

Earlier on its current tour, the band flashed a photo on a video screen of Donald Trump with horns and a goatee scribbled on his face, and Maines hasn’t minced words on social media.

In one tweet, she pictured President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Sen. Ted Cruz side by side. The former’s anti-war sentiments contrasted the latter’s quote about seeing if sand can glow in the dark. “Just so you know … I’m ashamed,” she wrote.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at dherrera@reviewjournal.com and follow @rjmusicdh on Twitter.