The Dixie Chicks have dropped “Dixie” from their name – and dropped a protest song.
The country trio – made up of Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire – announced Thursday they are moving forward as The Chicks.
The Dixie Chicks reportedly took their name from the 1973 Little Feat album Dixie Chicken but “Dixie” is, according to Variety columnist Jeremy Helligar, widely seen to represent “a celebration of a Southern tradition that is indivisible from Black slaves and those grand plantations where they were forced to toil for free."
MORE: Dixie Chicks Facing Calls For A Name Change
Ahead of the new album Gaslighter, due July 17, The Chicks have shared the decidedly political single “March March,” produced by Jack Antonoff.
“Tell the ol’ boys in the white bread lobby / What they can and can’t do with their bodies /Temperatures risin’ cities are sinkin’ / Ah cut the s**t,” they sing. “You know your city is sinkin’ / Lies are truth and truth is fiction / Everybody’s talkin’ / Who’s gonna listen.”
Gaslighter is the group’s eighth studio album and its first since 2006.
“March March” comes with a powerful video directed by Seanne Farmer. Watch it below: