\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Brandy Clark<\/a> arrived on set to film the lyric video for her new single \u201cAmerican Roots,\u201d her makeup artist had an idea. He wanted to paint her face and hands red, white, and blue, to riff on the song\u2019s ideas of envisioning a loving, inclusive America where everyone, including immigrants, belong.<\/p>\n \n\tClark was a little nervous at first, but it didn\u2019t stop her from moving forward. \u201cI\u2019m so associated with the rainbow flag,\u201d Clark, <\/em>whose excellent new album The Bird<\/em> is out in January, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cBut we deserve this. My fans deserve to see this.\u00a0 And a lot of people in my family, my dad being one of them, served in the military for that flag. That\u2019s all of our flag. MAGA does not own the flag.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a sentiment that a lot of Americans have been wrestling with as the Trump administration has worked to turn the flag into a symbol not of pride, but exclusion \u2014 and for country fans, one that was co-opted in a post 9\/11 landscape where jingoistic<\/a> songs passing as patriotism became radio gold. In the wake of the November midterms<\/a>, however, when a blue wave<\/a> saw Democratic gains in states once dismissed as lost causes, can artists change their relationship to patriotic songs?<\/p>\n \n