Chely Wright - "Bumper Of My SUV"

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Bumper Of My SUV :: Chely Wright
Genre: Country

I've got a bright red sticker on the back of my car
Says United States Marines
And yesterday a lady in a mini-van held up a middle finger at me
Does she think she knows what I stand for
Or the things that I believe
Just by looking at a sticker for the US Marines
On The Bumper Of My SUV

See, my brother Chris, he's been in for more than 14 years now
Our dad was in the Navy during Vietnam
Did his duty then he got out
And my grandpa earned his purple heart
On the beach of Normandy
That's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On The Bumper Of SUV

But that doesn't mean that I want war
I'm not Republican or Democrat
But I've gone all around this crazy world
Just to try and better understand

Yes I do have questions
I get to ask them because I'm free
That's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On the Bumper Of My SUV

Cause I've been to Hiroshima
And I've been to the DMZ
I've walked on the sand in Baghdad
Still don't have all of the answers I need
But I guess I wanna know where she's been
Before she judges and gestures to me
Cause she don't like my sticker
For the US Marines
On the bumper of my SUV

So I hope that lady in her mini-van
Turns on her radio and hears this from me
As she picks up her kids from their private school
And drives home safely on our city streets
Or to the building where her church group meets

Yeah, that's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On the bumper of my SUV

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, this is a class issue isn't it?

SUVs = the automobile of the proletarian
Minivans = the bourgeoise aristocrat fat-cat's car

― David Allen (David Allen), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm confused about who the narrator of this song is supposed to be. She has been in Hiroshima, Korea, and Baghdad? When? Is she a 75-year-old marine who fights in every war? Or is she Satan like in "Sympathy for the Devil?" Seriously, help me out.

― Guayaquil, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

man Hiroshima was really rough for the Marines, wasn't it.

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I read some article about this song; apparently the woman who wrote it has a brother over in Iraq, and this incident actually happened to her; somebody flipped her off and then pulled up to her at a stoplight and lectured her about the war. Haven't heard the song, so I can't comment on it.

I could very well have butchered those facts; I don't have any idea where I saw the article.

― Scott CE (Scott CE), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:05 (twenty-one years ago)

The writer of the song deserves to be flipped off just for driving an SUV.

― The Environment (SeanC), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, your brother Chris has been in 14 years, and you’re doing him a real favor by aiding our country’s dependency on foreign oil. I’m sure he appreciates being thousands of miles away from home during the holidays so he can ensure that you can drive to the grocery store in 4 wheel drive.

― David Allen (David Allen), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

What if the narrator was driving like an asshole?

Here's the real story about the song:
Campaign of deception used to push patriotic song up charts

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

haha - that's a funny little addendum. Great "street team" she's got there.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"SOME GAVE ALL" - August 1945
ihttp://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ENG/A-bomb/photo-1/p9.jpg

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Chely Wright/Cathi Walkup .. I thought this thread was about this song:
I Drive An SUV Because It's All About Me

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

So, after I returned from that initial trip into Iraq, I was driving down a main drag there in Nashville called West End when something happened. Something obviously moving enough for me to drive straight home and write this song.

She turned on the radio and the DJ was saying "Chely Wright has had a few hits, she's currently in the 'where are they now?' file..."

(More seriously, I do actually like this part:

As she picks up her kids from their private school
And drives home safely on our city streets
Or to the building where her church group meets

...in that, I dunno, I was sorta suspecting her to say the other person was off hugging trees.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

>I do actually like this part

Yeah, I like that part, too. Because the minivan lady knows nothing about the singer, but the singer knows exactly how the minivan lady raises her kids (knows whether or not she even has kids), etc., etc.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

The power of the mystic muse!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I like the knee-jerk aspect of putting "SUV" in the song title. She could say truck, or car, or a really generic term. Instead, you get SUV, so you polarize your audience into patriotic, real Americans who drive SUVs and the dirty hippie bastards who rail against your ability to drive a big vehicle. Who are the same ones that hate marines, obviously.

― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

>Yeah, I like that part, too. Because the minivan lady knows nothing about the singer, but the singer knows exactly how the minivan lady raises her kids (knows whether or not she even has kids), etc., etc<

Maybe that nasty minivan bitch has bumperstickers that say "My Daughter is an Honor Student at 10th Street Montesorri" and "United Church of Christ: Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

― chuck, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

So why can't we have a song about that?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 22:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I've said things I don't really mean to SUV drivers who block my view of the road ahead and don't bother to check their multiple blindspots and then cut me off.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

So.....is the song any good? Anybody heard it?

― Scott CE (Scott CE), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

it's nowhere near as good as the one dave225 linked to.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:12 (twenty-one years ago)

It's pretty awful. (And I say that as a fan of both "Single White Female" and "Back of the Bottom Drawer," by the way.) But I think I would like the video if Chely drove through New York with a dead deer strapped to her SUV's hood, and then she got out and chased drug dealers with a baseball bat, and she closed with a crucifix of light emerging on the back of her coat. That'd be cool, you gotta admit.

― chuck, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:12 (twenty-one years ago)

ALL IN SLOW MOTION.

― STOP WITH YOUR PTANS (natepatrin), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck, you could be the next Spike Jonze!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer, have you seen the video Chuck's referring to? It's a trip, it is.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:30 (twenty-one years ago)

is it a Montgomery Gentry video?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it Big & Rich or something?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:34 (twenty-one years ago)

they don't show videos in the uppity blue state I reside in.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:35 (twenty-one years ago)

But I think I would like the video if Chely drove through New York with a dead deer strapped to her SUV's hood, and then she got out and chased drug dealers with a baseball bat, and she closed with a crucifix of light emerging on the back of her coat.

it would be better if you replaced the deer with an iraqi citizen.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:38 (twenty-one years ago)

*zing*

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

is it a Montgomery Gentry video?

Yup -- "You Do Your Thing," unless I'm getting deeply confused and/or Chuck is conflating various videos together, which actually sounds like a fine idea. Anyway, said video and song are, how you say, interesting -- go here and select it, second one in the list (doesn't work on Macs, alas).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

omg I was totally joking. I guess chuck really IS that predictable.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 00:57 (twenty-one years ago)

That video is satanic as far as I'm concerned. This country is f*cked. How dare he use an image of MLK (ironically, right after the protagonist uses a baseball bat as a weapon) to market his hate.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't watch it - I didn't want to download some stupid "digital rights management" upgrade in order to see it.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Donna B. in Seattle had some things to say about it over this weekend when I was up visiting donut christ. She wasn't thrilled.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

anyway, i may well be "predictable," but from the SUV on down, that was hardly a random reference (as spencer's reaction to the video ought to make clear)...and for whatever it's worth, i submitted my country music poll ballot to the nashville scene yesterday, before i saw this thread; here's how my ballot ended:

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST VIDEOS OF 2004:
1. Big & Rich - Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)
2. Montgomery Gentry - You Do Your Thing
3. Shedaisy - Passenger Seat

COUNTRY MUSIC's THREE MOST FASCIST ASSHOLES OF 2004:
1. Joe Nichols (for "If Nobody Believed in You")
2. Montgomery Gentry
3. Chely Wright (for "The Bumper of My S.U.V.")

― chuck, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I figured you guys would be thrilled about a country song that makes it clear that the singer does not give full-on support for the war. I don't see what's fascist about this.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:15 (twenty-one years ago)

welp chuck, I'm bored and in need of entertainment, so enlighten me with how your reconcile calling people fascist assholes with admiring their expressions of fascist assholery.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck, you've seen the Joe Nichols video, right? That was the first thing I saw on VH-1 Country (which I switched to in resignation right after they called Florida!).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, she drove all around the ENTIRE WORLD in an SUV. That's fucked.

She should write songs about THAT.

― I'm serious ... Ti-i-i-i-im (deangulberry), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

That f*cking look and point he gives to the woman in the limo! What an evil misogynist. I hope he chokes on his hypocrisy.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Talking about Gentry there. Joe Nichols is just lame.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Um, nevermind Chuck. For some reason (blind seething hatred probably) I could only read the Montgomery Gentry part of your list.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Just because I find something so powerful I can't take my eyes off it doesn't mean I agree with it, Shakey. It helps that the music kicks so hard, too, and that the video is a better depiction of what happened on November 2 than anything else in music this year. That doesn't mean I'd invite Montgomery Gentry to eat dinner at my house, but just because I hate what they stand for doesn't mean I have to hate their music, obviously. (The lyrics, in a way, are more libertarian than fascist -- the chorus is "you do your thing I do mine." But the video makes me wonder how much they believe that, just like Chely's flaunting of her gas guzzler, and her deceitful equating of the war in Iraq with our "safety" and "freedom" here, not to mention her deceitful equating of people pissed off enough about the war to give flip her the bird with elitist rich people who send their kids to private school -- which, sorry Kenny, in the current environment absolutey helps condone the march toward facsicm even if it's too chickenshit to jump in whole hog like Montgomery Gentry do in their video -- make me wonder how many questions she's actually been asking about the war her brother's in. I mean, if she has questions, why the hell don't we hear them? As somebody pointed out upthread, she is not supporting her brother with that song, or that vehicle for that matter. And I say this as somebody who not only has been a fan of hers in the past, but as somebody who served four years in the military in the past as well, and somebody who knows plenty of SUV owners first-hand. I have every right to be pissed off about the song. And I am. And I'm even more pissed off about that scary-assed Montgomery Gentry video, but that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge a masterful and completely audacious piece of propaganda when I see it. Even if I think it's completely full of shit. I mean, I *wish* Eminem's "Mosh" video was that powerful. Sadly, it's not.)

xp. obv. And I gotta go.

― chuck, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I understand Chuck's point, but I don't think that video was directed by Leni Riefenstahl. I guess the misunderstanding comes from placing it under the "best" category, as opposed to "most fascinating".

Also, the "hate" in my last post is of course directed at Gentry (and not Chuck, obviously).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

"I guess the misunderstanding comes from placing it under the "best" category, as opposed to "most fascinating"."

Yeah, precisely. I would equate "best" with something I actually enjoy hearing/watching (which, by definition, I would also find fascinating, powerful, etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Can we also talk about the spelling of Chely Wright's name? WTF?!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

must be short for something.

Cheloise, perhaps.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 01:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, bizarrely (or maybe not) (I know I said I was gonna go; I will, I'm almost done packing my stuff up), the video that "You Do Your Thing" most brings to mine for me is Laibach's great quasi-fascist (though allegedly anti-fascist) "Life is Life" -- especially when Montgomery is standing there singing, with the stars and stripes and Constitution and purple mountain's majesty behind him, just like the alps and elks behind Laibach's brown shirts in their video. The thing gives me chills, and if any music will remind me 20 years from now how fucked up life got in 2004, seeing the MG video will. It totally gets this sickness dead on, from the horseshit about liberal elitist hypocrites eating their meat in those fancy restaurants while they look askance down their snobby urban noses at M and G and their kids returning from the hunting trip on down. And no, "best video" does not mean "most morally upstanding"; I'm not very good at judging music that way. But I have to admit that do get off on the video, somehow. There is something about its power, and the music's physical power, that I find hard to resist, and that makes the thing seem more dangerous, which makes it better. Maybe that makes me a masochist, who knows. But then again, it's hardly the first time that awesomely hard-rocking music has flirted with evil, and it won't be the last.

― chuck, Wednesday, 22 December 2004 02:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Dang. Now that's a paragraph I wish I could have written.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 02:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Even with all the criticisms, I can't hate on it. Made me think a lot about how often I've looked down on cars and houses with American flags on them.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 05:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean, if she has questions, why the hell don't we hear them? As somebody pointed out upthread, she is not supporting her brother with that song, or that vehicle for that matter.

Should we have heard the questions? That's not what the song is about, really, as much as it is the fact that she is proud of the military no matter what reservations she has about the current conflict; not the same thing as justifying the entire military presence in Iraq. As for whether or not she's helping her brother, maybe her brother completely agrees with the reasons for being in Iraq, or maybe he appreciates that his sacrifice is being acknowledged, or maybe he thinks it's a hypocritical piece of shit of whatever. I think you're punishing the song for not being a wholehearted affirmation of your own views (not to mention not being completely in disagreement as well).

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 08:20 (twenty-one years ago)

you're right, i think she should stop writing songs and just enlist.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 10:31 (twenty-one years ago)

My friends made a response song titled

"Ive got the sticker of the SS Troopers on the bumper of my Mini Cooper"

― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 22 December 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

eight years pass...

bump

― Nationwide Festival of Light Bondage (wins), Friday, 18 October 2013 22:16 (twelve years ago)

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