Tracy Lawrence has very passionate feelings about America and the government. In fact, at one time Lawrence even considered running for office, but he now says he has changed his mind and wants to focus solely on music.
“I have very strong political opinions, as do most people in the country right now, but outside of the political arena, that’s not what I do,” Lawrence told PopCulture.com. “It’s not my job and I have found myself getting turned off by celebrities and actors and musicians and people that get up on their platform and wave their hands. I want to see them for the art that they create, and I don’t really want to hear their political opinions because it’s turned me off to some people that I used to respect. I don’t want to be that guy.”
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Lawrence has decided being a politician isn’t for him, but he only came to that decision after starting to take steps in that direction.
“There was a point in the late 2000s, I had a dear friend of mine that was in the House of Representatives back in Arkansas and he was getting ready to retire,” Lawrence recalled. “I had a lot of people that were courting me to go back in and try to fill that seat. That would have meant me moving back to that district in Arkansas. My wife and I actually went and did some house shopping there, and as I got closer and closer to it, I just realized that that wasn’t where my heart was.”
Lawrence not only doesn’t want to be a politician, he also made sure his upcoming Made in America album celebrated all that is right with the country, without showing any trace of political beliefs.
“The title track is really the first Americana song that I’ve ever done,” Lawrence told PopCulture.com. “It’s one of the last pieces that was written for the record. I really had another working title in mind for it before I got to that, and when Rick Huckaby and Adam Sanders and I got together, I had this idea. I really wanted to write something that was very positive, very American, very proud to be where you come from, proud of the things that you make, proud of what you do with your hands.
“I wanted it to have that feel to it,” he continued. “I didn’t want it to be political at all. I wanted it to be really removed from that, just to go back to being proud of being an American. And I think we achieved that.”
Photo Credit: Getty images / Paul Archuleta