The haters giving him a million dollar idea.
Lee Brice has received plenty of criticism for his new song “Country Nowadays” since debuting the blue collar anthem during the Turning Point USA All-American Halftime Show earlier this month. But he’s embracing the memes, and will soon be launching merch to capitalize on the unexpected (or maybe it was expected…) attention to the song.
The song, which dropped today and was penned by Brice along with Matt Alderman and Nate Kenyon, finds the “Hard To Love” singer lamenting the state of our country and our politics nowadays while yearning for a simpler lifestyle:
“It ain’t easy being country in this country nowadays
The direction of fingers point when it all goes up in flames
Saying I’m some right wing devil because I was downside red letter raised
It ain’t easy being country in this country nowadays”
One line in particular got a lot of criticism, especially from the left:
“I just want to cut my grass, feed my dog, wear my boots
Not turn the TV on, sit and watch the evening news
Be told if I tell my own daughter
That little boys ain’t little girls
I’ll be up a creek in hot water
In this cancel-your-a** world”
I mean, he’s not wrong. Just this week we had a teacher in Nashville threatened with termination for refusing to read an LGBT book to a first grade class, and a politician in Minnesota arguing that kids need access to adult websites for educational purposes. What in the world is going on?
Well along with the backlash (ironically, from the same “cancel-your-a** world” that he’s complaining about in the song) also came the memes mocking another line in particular:
“I just want to catch my fish
Drive my truck, drink my beer
And not wake up to all this stuff
I don’t want to hear”
The memes have taken aim at the lines for playing into the stereotypes of country music, and one popular joke has been to replace every line of the song with the word “fish.”
But instead of getting mad at the memes poking fun at the song, Lee has decided to embrace them – and monetize them.
Ahead of the song dropping last night, he shared a video from a recent show encouraging the crowd to sing along with “Kiss my fish.”
And this morning, he called into the Big D and Bubba Show to give his reaction to the memes, as well as drop a hint about some merch he’s got coming soon:
“Thank you for the million dollar idea. Those hats are going to be in in like four days.”
He says that he didn’t mean for the song to be offensive, and doesn’t believe that it was:
“I was never out to hurt anyone, and I didn’t say anything that did that. … I said something on the stage for one time. I said, ‘Guys, this wasn’t meant for that, this was me being a daddy and just saying my truth, just like everybody else has their truth.’ But hey, kiss my fish.”
I mean, as Lee points out, when you catch a nice fish, you gotta kiss it before you throw it back, right?
Anyway, you can check out his reaction to the viral meme during his interview on the radio show – and if you’re interested, you can keep an eye out for the “Kiss My Fish” hats coming to his merch store soon.
Well done on embracing the memes. Seems like only one side can laugh at themselves like that these days…
And if you want to listen to the REAL version of “Country Nowadays,” which does NOT say “Kiss my fish,” the song is out now.
