Something about the song “U.S. Blues” has always seemed truly bizarre.
The Grateful Dead came out of the 1960s counterculture. While they were playing their songs and growing into a legend, the youth in this country were demonstrating, rioting, and trying in a thousand ways to say “Fuck You” to the Establishment (remember?): burning draft cards, burning the flag, flying the Viet Cong flag, whatever. There were radicals like the SDS, the Weathermen (name taken from “Subterranean Homesick Blues”) planting bombs and really trying to overthrow the whole system. Jerry Rubin went to be grilled by the HUAC wearing a uniform from the Revolutionary War. Just to flip off the system! They attacked or mocked symbols of American patriotism wherever they could, because they were seen as symbols of imperialism and a very bad war in Vietnam.
Some thought of rock music combined with political revolution as a natural team-up. Bob Dylan sang of “music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.” Todd Rundgren sang about “revolution on the TV” and asked the musical question “Are you only just a rock-‘n’-roll pussy?” There was a lot of pressure in the “Movement” to be ideologically pure and totally committed to overthrowing the government, and not just be playing around.
But not everybody in the so-called counterculture was so passionate about politics or the war, or so radical about destroying the United States. A lot of the hippies were just about getting high, taking trips, innovating music and art, or just plain partying and getting stoned. The Grateful Dead definitely appealed more to the latter type. Hunter’s lyrics in “Ripple” expressed the typical cynicism with “leaders”: You who choose to lead must follow, and if you fall, you fall alone. . . .
Then they came out with “U. S. Blues.” They took traditional symbols of American patriotism and — forget about political theory — just had fun with them.
Red and white, blue suede shoes, I’m Uncle Sam, how do you do?
Gimme five, I’m still alive, ain’t no luck, I learned to duck.
Check my pulse, it don’t change. Stay seventy-two come shine or rain.
Wave the flag, pop the bag, rock the boat, skin the goat.
In the Grateful Dead Movie, the psychedelic animation that accompanied this song featured the trademark Grateful Dead skeleton. But he was dressed in the Uncle Sam uniform. Here was the old-fashioned symbol of the government and the nation reimagined as a party animal. “Blue Suede Shoes.” That’s all you need to say and everyone from the rock ‘n’ roll generation understands the significance immediately without needing any explanation. Kevin Ayers also used this trope in “Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes”, one of the best marijuana songs ever.
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my.
Only a few years before, antiwar demonstrators had been burning the flag. Now here come the Dead, waving it “wide and high”! The animation in the movie shows the skeleton “Uncle Sam” riding down the road in an open car flying a huge American flag. What’s going on here? Have they turned into right-wing jingo patriots all of a sudden? Planning to kill the Commies? No way, nothing like that. Waving the flag is just a fun thing, a cool thing to do because it’s fun and we’re gettin down and partyin, man, because that’s what summertime is all about.
The Grateful Dead in this song are so far beyond all the divisive political issues that had just torn up this country that they can ignore them as if nothing had happened. Uncle Sam and the flag are cool because, hey, rock ‘n’ roll & partyin & summertime are what America’s all about. The Beach Boys sang “Endless Summer.” Alice Cooper sang “School’s out for the summer! School’s out forever!” What else is there?
The next closest thing to this I can think of is Austin Powers in his mod Union Jack car. Cool Britannia.
The Dead are not even trying to mock or flip off the system by having fun with patriotic symbols. There really is no political subtext to this song at all. They’re just about having fun, period. “Postmodern” is what they call the pastiche of bits of old ideologies rearranged in a subversive way. But this song doesn’t even have anything to do with that. Uncle Sam has been reborn as a rock-‘n’-roller. He parties with old-time showbiz characters. It is totally innocent of politics…
I’m Uncle Sam, that’s who I am; Been hidin’ out in a rock and roll band.
Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan.
Shine your shoes, light your fuse. Can you use them ol’ U.S. Blues?
I’ll drink your health, share your wealth, run your life, steal your wife.
…Or is it?
“Share your wealth, run your life?” Oh what the heck . . . maybe that’s just to make a silly rhyme.
*Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my.
Back to back chicken shack. Son of a gun, better change your act.
We’re all confused, what’s to lose?*
You can say that again.
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my.
