Eric Church and Ashley McBryde Team at ACM Awards for Ominous ‘The Snake’
The 2019 Academy of Country Music Awards were not short on performances that fell on the heavier side (see George Strait and Blake Shelton); however, when six-time ACM winner Eric Church and newly crowned New Female Artist Ashley McBryde took the stage, things went to probably the darkest level of the evening.
The duo performed Church's ominous composition "The Snake," which uses a swampy acoustic guitar riff as a base for a grimly bleak portrait of America's partisan politics, and how the two major parties are parasitic forces in society.
The lyrics of "The Snake" portray America's two most influential parties as two snakes feeding on the electorate.
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"Rattlesnake, copperhead / Either one of them kill you dead / We stay hungry, they get fed. . . . And the whole world’s burning down," they sang over a doomful background.
Church is living this situation, having told Rolling Stone that he couldn't bring himself to vote in the 2016 election, as he was displeased with the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. He "just didn't see much" in Clinton, and in regard to Trump, he says, “I don’t want to vote for somebody I’ll regret voting for.”
His gritty vocals, set off by McBryde's equally weary delivery, provided an eerie air to the otherwise lighthearted and celebratory vibe at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena.
McBryde walked into the 2019 ACM Awards a winner; she was named New Female Artist of the Year in advance of the broadcast. She also performed her breakout song, "Girl Going Nowhere," on Sunday night.
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