So it's that day when people all over the U.S. will gather about grills and burn animal flesh to consume in celebration of the birth of our country, then we'll listen to music and explode pretty firecrackers and celebrate the way this country was created - in the flash of powder and the slash of sword. There will be a lot of war mongering for Dubya's current fantasies masked as patriotism and historical reflection, but it is Springsteen's recasting of an old Pete Seeger song that best describes the way I feel today. Our country was founded in the belief that we did not want to be oppressed by another power from across the ocean. It is time for us to acknowledge that the way to show respect for those we ask to protect us is to ask them to do JUST that, and to keep them safe from the wild excursions of greedy men who would murder innocent people and sacrifice innocent soldiers in order to gain their own selfish, greedy, despicable ends.
For a bit of historical perspective you can have a look at an old version of the same song by Pete Seeger himself. When Pete sang this on network television the war was a different one but the circumstances, the issues, the excuses, and the greed were pretty much the same. Even some of the players still haven't changed.[Note 07/01/08: Having just checked this post I find that the You Tube version of this song has been removed, which is really very sad... As a replacement, here's Pete's version of This Land Is Your Land, a song I discuss below.]
Next... is what I think of as my second favorite patriotic tune, Ray Charles' version of America the Beautiful He begins this version with the third verse (a technique that Bruce uses a lot as well) because it's the third verse that has the most interesting concepts and it's the verse that is least often played. In this verse he sings of how the country was first founded and how those founders sought to create a better life.I am proud to be an American. You don't have to know me very long, or read too much of what I write to know that about me. I believe in the grander ideas that the founders of the country believed in even when they themselves were not capable of living up to their own ideal. I also believe in the ways that we have improved upon those ideas over the years and I hold out hope that we will continue to improve rather than fall backwards in some sort of political and personal devolution. This is the hope I hold when the fireworks start popping.
Finally, on Thom's Happy Historical Holiday Hit Parade come two versions of what is absolutely my FAVORITE patriotic song, Woody Guthrie's answer to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," the beautiful, inspiring, generally misunderstood "This Land Is Your Land." When I was a kid in Florida my dad took me to a live outdoor presentation of The Skipper Chuck Show and we were led in a rollicking rendition of this song and something about it stuck. That afternoon was one of those strange and almost unbelievably life changing moments. I truly BELIEVE in this song. I believe in the land based beauty it describes, and I believe in the struggles of the people it celebrates, and I believe in the love and determination of the poet/songwriter.
Springsteen's version comes from twenty years ago on the Born In The USA tour, and touches at the heart of what the song means to me but Arlo Guthrie's amusing version here is particularly special to me when he gets to the last verse and declares... "Nobody livin' can ever stop me as I go walkin my freedom highway. Nobody livin' can make me turn back! This Land was made for you and me." THAT is what the Fourth of July is about!
NOBODY can take away your heart... Not King George in London in 1776 and Not King George in Washington in 2007.
Happy Independence Day!
