An Ode to Wide Open Spaces and The Chicks

+ what I've been listening to lately, many many footnotes, and a story about seeing Sabrina Carpenter in concert last weekend!

Sabrina Carpenter and The Chicks, October 2025

Last Saturday as I sat watching my daughter’s volleyball game, my husband got a text from a friend: do you want to go to ACL¹ tonight, I have two free wristbands. Which is how I ended up at a Sabrina Carpenter concert with a dear friend and 450,000² other people.

I am admittedly not very familiar with Carpenter’s music, but it’s hard to resist a big live pop production. She’d already played at the first weekend of the festival, Shania Twain joining her on stage. We’d hear rumors that Taylor Swift might show up this weekend to sing the song they just put out together (though I wasn’t too sold on this logistical nightmare of an idea). As Carpenter’s set neared the end, she asked the crowd to make some noise so she could welcome her guests³ I began to imagine how the crowd would react if Swift came out. I could hear the screaming and crying. I could see the hugging and jumping (maybe even some fainting). Of course, I would not respond this way I told myself, but I could see it.

I heard Carpenter say put your hands together and welcome The Chicks! And in a moment I became what I’d seen in my imagination. Tears streamed down my face as I cheered, my heart racing — I could not believe it. I’d seen them in concert before, but this time I was completely surprised. The Chicks have been my favorite band since I first heard Wide Open Spaces in 1998 when I was just 14 years old.

My friends and I played that album until our parents begged for mercy. We had choreographed dances and attempted to match Natalie Maines iconic voice with our own. We found ourselves in songs about growing up, friendship, and love⁴.

I followed them through controversy as my politics were beginning to change during my college years. They were cancelled when cancelling was just getting going. While others around me burned their records⁵ and promised to never listen to them again, I rolled down my windows and sang a little louder. She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes.

As I graduated college, in May 2006, feeling a little lost and unsure what was coming next, a new album, Taking the Long Way, was released. The Chicks’ last three years had been overwhelming, exhausting, and transformative. Mine had been too. I was changing and growing and releasing right alongside them. I remember buying the CD and taking a long drive to listen to it in full⁶. I felt so understood in the lyrics, and played the album over and over singing loudly: but i’ve always found my way somehow, by taking the long way around.

I trusted these words. And I knew this was my path too. Just a few months later I’d board a plane to Switzerland, to live as an aupair with a family I’d never met, in a country⁷ I’d never been to. I packed a few books, my Chicks CDs, and a phone that wouldn’t work once I got there.⁸ I continued playing Taking the Long Way and Wide Open Spaces⁹ in the months and years to follow, the songs playing in my head each step I took.

That night last week, I stood there in shock. I told my husband later — it was one of the best surprises of my life.¹⁰ As they sang, my mind flooded with memories of the many years of loving their music. I remembered dancing and singing loudly as a teenager. I thought of other shows I’d seen The Chicks play and how my kids know their music by heart. I thought about how just hearing that opening fiddle line empowers me to be myself, to use my voice, to follow a dream, to strike out — and I cried. I cried as they sang because I resonate so deeply still all these years later.

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girls dream no longer hollow
It takes a shape of a place out west,
but what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes

What I’m listening to lately:

Here are a few albums I’ve been listening to lately (some old and some new):

• Jon Batiste: Big Money I love this new record!

• Brandi Carlile: Returning to Myself - this record comes out next week and I’m so excited. I’ve been listening to the singles, and just can’t wait.

• The Barr Brothers: Let it Hiss - I’ve been listening to a few singles on rotation from the new album that just came out yesterday.

• Prince: Purple Rain. I’ve especially been drawn to When Doves Cry.

• John Baumann: Guy on a Rock - released just a week ago, this came out of my husband’s studio and it’s so good. I’m especially loving I Still Believe in America and Susan Up The Street.

• The Chicks: Taking the Long Way - I just can’t help myself after last weekend!

I’ve also been hearing lots of KPop Demon Hunters and our Halloween playlist is getting many requests on the drive to school. And I did listen to the new Taylor Swift album, but don’t really have anything to add to all that has already been said! What about you, what’s in rotation right now?

alongside you,

Holly

1. Austin City Limits music festival

2. this was the estimate of attendees on Saturday, October 10th according to a quick google search.

3. this plural word should have been a clue!

4. I can vividly remember a biology class where a friend and I tried to remember all the lyrics to Cowboy Take me Away having only heard it as a single on the radio.

5. this is not a metaphorical trash, people were burning their CDs!

6. It’s wild to remember this time in my life. Pre-smart phone and pre-streaming. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get a new CD or borrow one from a friend and listen to the whole thing on a drive or while lying on my bed. Can you even?

7. and also continent I’d never been to!

8. a longer story for another time.

9. and the other albums! Specifically a live album from their 2003 tour.

10. lol! so dramatic! so true!!