Why Goodbye Earl is the Ultimate Chaotic Best Friend Anthem

photo from bsidesbadlands.com

Every now and then, there will be a song that just absolutely gets women amped, no matter their background or genre preference. In my experience, one of those songs is Goodbye Earl by The Chicks (formerly known as The Dixie Chicks). Unless you lived under a rock in the early 2000’s, you’ve had to have heard this iconic hit essentially about burying a body. Recently, I was at a small gathering where this song came on and every woman there started shouting the lyrics at the top of their lungs despite not realizing we all knew the song.

The Chicks released Goodbye Earl as a single for their album Fly in 2000 where it ended up peaking at number 13 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart. Oddly enough, despite it not ranking as high as some of their other songs, Goodbye Earl became one of their most well known songs to date, understandably so. Now in 2000 I was only 6 years old, but this song immediately became one of my absolute favorites. I was straight up learning dances with my friends and making sure I knew every word, all while not quite understanding it was about murder. I eventually caught on to the meaning as I got older and watching the music video really solidified it.

The song starts off by singing about two best friends, MaryAnn and Wanda, who have been by each other’s sides all through various high school experiences. When they graduate MaryAnn leaves town to start a new life while Wanda stays behind. That’s where Earl comes in. Wanda meets this guy named Earl, marries him, and soon ends up being abused by him. Things get really awful and Wanda ends up in the ICU after filing for a restraining order. The moment MaryAnn hears about it, she flies across the country to be by Wanda’s side in the hospital and it is right there that they decide, “Earl has to die.” The song goes on to describe how the women poison Earl with some black-eyed peas, roll his body up in a tarp, and dump him into a lake. The women pretty much get away with it due to the fact that Earl was a well known scumbag based off of one of my favorite lyrics “it turns out he was a missing person who nobody missed at all.” So once the ladies are in the clear, they buy some land together and open up some sort of roadside farmer’s market type of situation where they sell “Tennessee ham & strawberry jam” and live happily ever after.

Not only are the lyrics and storytelling great, but the music video for this song is phenomenal. Despite being only 4 minutes and 18 seconds long, the music video feels like you are watching a full on chick flick. Instead of having the members of The Chicks play MaryAnn and Wanda, they hire actors to portray it even better while having the band act as sort of flies on the wall throughout all the drama. They even cast a greasy looking guy as Earl to make the audience a little more repulsed by him. They show a gruesome scene of the physically abused Wanda in the hospital to really highlight the seriousness of the situation but pull you right back into laughter as it shows them poisoning Earl with the black-eyed peas, wrapping him up in a tarp and taking him to the lake, all while the members of The Chicks are mocking Earl along with MaryAnn and Wanda. It shows the cops coming to search the house in minimal effort, probably due to Earl’s reputation as a scumbag, and then they simply tip their hats and wish the women luck. The last bit of the song and video is seriously so fun to listen to and watch because it makes it hard not to dance around. In the music video they are shown at their roadside stand dancing along to a huge crown of various types of people, continuing to mock Earl. This scene gives viewers such a sense of victory and celebration for Wanda to have taken matters into her own hands. And while I don’t condemn murder, you can’t help but be happy it happens in this case.

One thing to note is that although the song is supposed to be light and funny, it does showcase a very real and unfortunate situation that many people face. Something I found really wholesome was that when this song was played on the radio after it’s release in early 2000, many radio stations used it as an opportunity to advertise the hotline for domestic violence. Some radio stations even started to donate to local domestic violence shelters every time the song was played on their station. I mean how cool is that?! The Chicks really made the perfect dark humor song to bring awareness to domestic violence AND possibly helped women who were actually suffering from that type of situation.

So, that brings me back to my main point, that Goodbye Earl really is the ultimate chaotic best friend anthem. I think the key term in that statement is the word “chaotic.” I say that because I am sure there are plenty of wonderful and sweet songs about friendship that many people cherish, but there is something about your relationships with your best friends having a little bit of chaos thrown in to let them know you’d do pretty much anything for them. Like the fact that MaryAnn dropped everything and took a redeye flight to be with her best friend in the hospital and on the spot was like “you know what, let’s kill that loser” and then actually followed through is iconic. Not only that, she didn’t even leave Wanda behind to deal with the consequences. She full on bought some land with her and started a new life. Now THAT is women supporting women! However, if you and your friends don’t laugh at a little dark humor about murder, that’s totally fine, but you can’t deny that the end of that song gets you and your girls pumped up. Go for a drive with your best gal pals and turn this song all the way up and I guarantee y’all will have a blast.

In conclusion, Goodbye Earl is the ultimate chaotic best friend anthem due to it’s use of dark humor to highlight a very real and serious situation, it created an opportunity to bring actual awareness and charity to that issue, tells a story of two best friends going to the ends of the earth for each other, and providing a music video experience equal to an entire chick flick. Please take a moment to watch the music video below and give me your thoughts on whether or not you agree.

Thanks for reading!