Can’t say I saw this one coming from Brad.
Brad Paisley took a lot of criticism recently when he released a song, “Same Here,” featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The “Mud On the Tires” singer even had to turn off comments on his Instagram after people flooded to the post to mock the singer for his half-hearted attempt at a “world peace” anthem, accusing him of “going woke.”
The comments were brutal:
“Go woke go broke. Stop supporting Ukraine!”
“What does the president of Ukraine have to do with country music?”
“Unfollowing”
“Nah this ain’t it man. You made a song with Zelenskyy?”
“Stop the Ukraine stuff. They are stealing our tax dollars. Don’t do this.”
“Not interested. You have your hand in Biden’s pocket. I will no longer play or listen to you.”
“Making a song with a president who is leading us to WW3. You have a song called ‘love and war’ speaking about the exact opposite. You use to be a stand up dude what happened to you ?”
“Turning off your comments on the virtue signaling? Wake up and realize Ukraine is the new Afghanistan. Lockheed and Raytheon fund DC politicians to vote for war profits, then everyone makes $$. Now you’re doing it. Pathetic and sad.”
“Did you seriously make a new song with Zelensky speaking? So disappointing you would jump on the democratic platform of promoting a proxy war to make money which is leading us to the brink of World War 3.”
“How’d you go from writing songs like ‘I’m Still a Guy’ to being a cuck for Kyiv?”
“I don’t associate with guys that shill for the Bidens”
“Ukraine sell out”
“If you’re looking at the world you need to open your blind eyes and see that you’re siding with corruption which is going to lead to the downfall of this country. So disappointed in you.”
The singer also traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine to perform the song in person, and was (yet again) mocked for what many called a “virtue signaling” attempt at diplomacy.
And back in 2021, Paisley was criticized when he called getting vaccinated “the most patriotic thing” during an appearance in Nashville with First Lady Jill Biden.
Well apparently Paisley is now trying to distance himself from the “woke” crowd that many have started to associate him with.
According to Outkick, Brad discussed the topic during an upcoming appearance on the Club Random podcast with Bill Maher.
Maher is notably liberal himself but often speaks out against “woke” culture and criticizes the movement for taking things too far – and Brad agreed with him:
“The thing about the woke culture thing that a friend of mine who is a psychologist told me that, this is an interesting comparison because I understand the need for progress.
I’ve always loved your show when you talk about celebrating progress. We don’t take the time to do that, to celebrate it.
In the wokeness sense, there’s things about when woke goes off the rails, it’s when they lean towards being a cult themselves. That is where it’s like ‘You got to repent, you got to do this…'”
Maher also mentioned how the current climate has forced people to censor themselves out of fear of offending someone:
“People become a**hole buddies when they joke with each other. Now I feel like we’re at this place where, ‘Oh, no, that’s funny, and I think he’d laugh, but I better not,’ because if it goes wrong…”
And Paisley agreed with him, saying that we need to get back to a place where humor is acceptable:
“I definitely think that’s the path forward for all of us is finding the humor and the forgiveness. That’s got to happen.”
Of course, folks on Twitter seemed to find it ironic that these comments were coming from Brad:
He took the Woke’s side so…
— Cindy (@burnzyc19) June 16, 2023
And yet, he cut a song about Ukraine! He’s as woke as can be!
— DocFeelGood13 USA! (@Hippylife13) June 16, 2023
As he flies to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskyy.
— Joe Dunham (@Joeballkopitar) June 16, 2023
