The 1973 political song that got Linda Ronstadt fired from her Las Vegas residency
It’s easy to forget just how fraught the US political landscape was in the 2000s, a febrile climate Linda Ronstadt found herself caught in late in her career.
It’s dwarfed by today’s MAGA culture wars, but the War on Terror under President George W Bush’s administration paved the way for today’s partisan polarisation.
Patriotism began to puff its chest during the Iraq War’s bloody devastation, the post-9/11 nightmare fuelled a potent jingoism and contempt for the broader left, and any effort to speak out against the government’s imperial bludgeon on the Middle-East invited a scathing response from the conservative media machine, a fact the Dixie Chicks discovered when calling out Bush during the previous year’s Top of the World Tour.
Ronstadt’s political leanings shouldn’t have been a surprise to longtime fans. Shaped by the 1960s counterculture, the singing veteran took with her all the era’s liberal values and a staunch support for the Democratic Party, even dating three times Presidential primary candidate Jerry Brown. Performances at South Africa’s Sun City aside, but Ronstadt’s anti-Republican position was without doubt.
However, according to half of the audience at Las Vegas’ Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, you at least had to keep such criticisms to yourself. Taking the stage on July 17th, 2004, just as Bush’s re-election bid was underway, Ronstadt played her set as she’d been doing across the country and decided to make a statement before he encore, celebrating filmmaker Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary exploring the Iraq War, as well as lambasting the era’s political trajectories while dedicating such feeling to one massive Eagles hit she was due to cover.
‘Desperado’ was featured on 1973’s namesake album, the Eagles’ second album that would stand as a canonical folksy cut despite never finding life as a single. An outlaw metaphor exploring an old cowboy’s struggles in their stoic isolation, Don Henley and Glenn Frey’s introspective country number would enjoy greater stature once Ronstadt released her own take on Don’t Cry Now six months later, Henley freely admitting her rendition boosted the song’s popularity.
Jump over 30 years later, and Ronstadt’s political statement ahead of her ‘Desperado’ performance was met with a mixed hall of cheers and boos, such was the division of the day.
The hotel-casino manager, Bill Timmins, was furious. “It was a very ugly scene,” he told the Associated Press. “She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose,” later adding she, “spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it. As long as I’m here, she’s not going to play”.
The world ultimately was on Ronstadt’s side, however. Moore made a statement in support, the Eagles cancelled all arrangements with the Aladdin venue, and The Rolling Stones and Elton John sent telegrams of support. Ronstadt made further statements on summer tours of 2004 and 2006, celebrating Moore’s documentary to little fanfare, her detractors realising quickly enough the artist was never going to just ‘shut up and sing’ for anybody.
