For the longest time, the women in country music had to fit this certain mold. Despite the likes of Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton as trailblazers, Nashville had a very particular idea of what women could do in the industry. You think of the golden hair or occasionally the sexualized nature, all serving as fodder to men. They could only ever serve as one thing. That's if country decided to prop women up in the field at all. These are the issues that Gretchen Wilson had in mind when she first wrote "Redneck Woman."
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Recently, she sat down with Bobby Bones, where she spoke about her big hit. She knew she couldn't quite nail the presentation that made Faith Hill such a massive star. Consequently, she looks at it as divine timing, all the cards miraculously working in Gretchen's favor. Wilson would come in as a breath of fresh air as contrast to the system in place.
"Women like me weren't really being spoken to or sung about, and you know, when I turned on the music channels, all I saw was beautiful women like Faith Hill rolling around on silk sheets, 'I can feel you breathe.' And I'm like, who the hell looks like that at 6 o'clock in the morning, you know?" Gretchen says.
Gretchen Wilson Talks About How She Had to Fight for "Redneck Woman" to Prosper
"Not me, or anybody that I know. So it was just the time, it was time to write a song for women like me that we're happy to be like me. That thought that their whole world was fulfilled living in a mobile home, driving a pick up truck, raising kids and dogs and then going to the football game on the weekend. Not everybody wants the same thing in life. If that's what your life is, and that's what you're happy with, you should be celebrated too," Gretchen adds.
It wasn't just visual perception either. Despite the fanfare, the mere idea of marketing 'redneck' threw people off. "The fans loved it, and if it hadn't been for the fans calling local radio stations and demanding it, I'm not sure that it would have gone the way it did. Program directors didn't really love it that much. I mean, we got phone calls back at at the label. Some of them saying things like, 'We've been working for 20 years to get this 'redneck' word out of our listeners' mouth,'" Gretchen recalls.
And it was really kind of up to me to define redneck. It's like, you guys have just decided all across this country that it's a bad word and that it means racist, but that's not what it means. It's not at all what it means. I mean, being a redneck has value," Gretchen continues. "It's about where you come from and it's really about being out in the field farming all day. Coming back in the house and having a redneck from being out on a tractor all day long, that's what it's about.
