It is hypothetically possible, if you close your eyes really tight, to listen to parts of the Dixie Chicks’ (now known as the Chicks) highly anticipated Taking the Long Way and not think about the Thing. It’s feasible, I suppose, to take Natalie Maines‘ grand, Bruce Springsteenian opening verses about burning down the road. “My friends from high school … moved into houses in the same ZIP codes where their parents lived,” she sings, before deciding her destiny involved hitting “the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling” as more of the Chicks’ frothy independent streak, delivered as always with a nice harmony and an ever-present twist of girl power.
Of course, if you’re going to listen that way, it’d help if you weren’t awake. About eight seconds later, Maines reports that it’s been “two long years now, since the top of the world came crashing down”, and thus sets the stage for a pointed, polarising, and uniformly excellent record jam-packed with references to the Thing.