This is the thread where you post your ire towards Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA"

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Just so we don't clutter up Mark's thread with noise.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 28 February 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I only pretend to like it?

― hstencil, Friday, 28 February 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

no IRE!

steve malkmus 2000, wearing a lee greenwood shirt at a show. got teased about it. busted into an (ironically?) unironic cover of "god bless the usa"... it was actually a pretty good version.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 28 February 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Lyrics:

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife,
I'd thank my lucky stars
to be living here today,
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can't take that away.

I'm proud to be an American
where at least I know I'm free,
And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

From the lakes of Minnesota
to the hills of Tennessee,
Across the plains of Texas
from sea to shining sea.
From Detroit down to Houston
and New York to L.A.,
There's pride in every American heart
and it's time we stand and say:

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 28 February 2003 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard it at the gas station yesterday. Pretty fucking bad. I won't rag on his message, but this is the kind crap that makes it hard to explain to my grandma why it is I make the music that I do.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 28 February 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually the lyrics, while terrible, aren't as jingoist as I would have guessed. The melody & Greenwood's delivery push it into that territory, that plus the time I saw the song performed in Spartan Statium with red white & blue fireworks going off and a 300 person Marching band forming a 100-yard long flag on the field. This was like a year after Gulf War I.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 28 February 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

steve malkmus = america.

where's my exit visa?

― jack cole (jackcole), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

where at least I know I'm free,

this is the part that really gets under my skin. At least you're free? Like it's some sort of consolation. It's like "well, i'm dead broke, without a job or medical coverage and my public education is crap, and i can't get a job because of my skin color but hey, At Least I Know I'm Free"

i know i'm being picky, but it's the crux of the song, onwards to its mind-numbing crescendo, and it's a crap line.

― david day (winslow), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't actually know the song. I think I've heard it - or parts of it - here & there ... But I imagine that I would hate it... For the same reasons I hate Christian rock.. lack of subtlety.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually the prob with Xian rock is failed subtlety.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

and it's a crap line

It's a crap line because it's a dumb generalization that leads to the probably dumber generalizations of comparing to other countries: at least I know I'm free, not like those fag commy pinkos in Russia. What a moron.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:41 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the type of thing that makes me want to get out for good.

― Clarke B., Friday, 28 February 2003 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I also get the feeling that Lee Greenwood has never traveled outside of Hazzard County.. so when he talks about being proud to be an Amurikin, he could just as well be singing that he's proud to be from Broken Stick, Arkansas... ..or proud to be a Greenwood...

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Given how monumentally stupid this song is, I would have thought we could stave off kneejerk anti-southerner rhetoric for a few dozen more posts.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

It's not anti-southerner .. it's anti-ignoramus. Oh. I see what you mean...

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Is this the song that Haven Hamilton performed at the beginning of Nashville? Or is that a parody of this song?

― die9o (dhadis), Friday, 28 February 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

No, it's a different but similar song IIRC -- about the bicentennial. "Keep a-goin'" and "For the Sake of the Children" are classic though.

Few songs get my blood boiling like "God Bless the USA."

― Andy K (Andy K), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

God Bless the (NASCAR Fan) Numbskulls who Support my Vices with Royalty Checks of Gargantuan Proportion.

― christoff (christoff), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh. I don't like this song, but lyrically, I find it pretty inoffensive. A lot of the above objections are kind of odd to me, especially to "At least I know I'm free." To me, it's obvious that in the context of the first verse, he's saying, If a bunch of bad things happened and I had to start over, at least I would have the knowledge that I am free; not, at least I'm not living in godless Russia or Iraq or whatever, which is the interpretation that most of you seem to have. I guess it's all about emphasis. David Day's post, however, seems totally based on a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of Greenwood's use of "At least." To me, the song is corny, but harmless.

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife,

Greenwood should sing this song to convention of former employees of Enron.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

They're all free to find new jobs...

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd rather hear, in hell, "Keep A-Goin' " on endless loop.

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm proud to be an American/
where at least I know I'm free,
Call me cynical, but this part always goes through my head whenever I read stories in the newspaper about someones Constitutional rights have been abridged.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

They're all free to find new jobs...

...and new retirment nest eggs.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, southerners are idiots!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I just heard that song thingy on xfm where it's a bunch of Bush soundbites all chopped up and mixed back together to make him sound even more stupid ("Saddam is hiding...no fewer than three warheads..in his arse") with "God Bless the USA" looped in the background.

What's up with that?

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

satire - the powers that be shudder at the thought of it, it's very powerful like protest songs and such

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

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