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  • 2006-09-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Was Diamond Rio's 'In God We Still Trust' Shunned by Radio? (en)
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  • The lyrics of the Diamond Rio song In God We Still Trust (alternately known as Here in America) might best be summarized as an affirmation of the U.S. national motto, In God We Trust: Back in 2006, circulated e-mails touted the notion that In God We Still Trust did not receive radio airplay because its pro-religion-in-America message was deemed too politically incorrect: These claims that did not stand up to scrutiny. In general, for a song to receive significant radio play, it needs to be issued as a single and to have substantial promotional backing from the releasing label. But In God We Still Trust evidently satisfied neither of those requirements: it wasn't released at all (in any format) until it appeared as one of the four new songs included on Diamond Rio's Greatest Hits II CD in May 2006, and even then it was primarily an album track, not a single that was being sent to radio stations and promoted for airplay. The claim that Major radio stations wouldn't play it because it was considered politically incorrect; consequently, the song was never released to the public therefore puts the cart before the horse: a song generally needs to be released before it can receive widespread airplay on major radio stations, not vice-versa. When In God We Still Trust was finally released, it had to compete for airplay in the wake of several other similarly-themed songs from prominent recording artists, such as Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue and American Soldier, Brooks and Dunn's Believe, Carrie Underwood's Jesus Take the Wheel, and Brad Paisley's When I Get Where I'm Going. Listeners apparently didn't find the Diamond Rio song distinctive or appealing enough to make it stand out from a crowd of kindred songs and prompt additional requests for airplay, so — like a lot of other music — it quietly faded off of radio playlists without having achieved even minor hit status. Its lack of airplay wasn't due to political incorrectness, but rather to bad timing and getting lost in the shuffle. However, In God We Still Trust was the subject of a somewhat similar controversy three years later, in March 2009, when students at a Florida elementary school were rehearsing the song to perform it as part of an end-of-the year school assembly. The parents of two students filed a lawsuit against the school board maintaining that the school had violated their children's First Amendment rights by making them choose between practicing a 'proselytizing' and 'sectarian' country music song or sitting out the entire performance. A U.S. District Judge issued an injunction against the song's performance at the school assembly, although it had already been dropped from the program by then. Any suggestion of a connection between President Obama and the alleged radio censorship of In God We Still Trust is completely specious, as Diamond Rio's recording of the song was released over two and a half years before Barack Obama took office as President of the United States. (en)
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