# Proud to be an American? (the song) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837 "2004-10-12T16:53:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Already\_in\_Use](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/61 "2004-10-13T20:33:28Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > In his new book, _In the Shadow of No Towers_, Art Spiegelman writes about how, not long after 9/11, he found himself in Indiana, saw some doorway adorned with American flag bunting, and he knew exactly how Vampires felt about garlic. Oddly enough, despite my aversion to making students sing patriotic songs, I really do like bunting. I’ve always thought it looks nice, or at least can depending on where you put it. Maybe it’s partially because I live near Bristol, RI, where they call themselves the “Most Patriotic Town in America” and completely deck the place out for the Fourth of July Parade, and keep the bunting up for at least a few months afterwards? ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/62 "2004-10-13T20:53:00Z")
During the first Gulf War, I was doing morning radio in Tokyo on AFRTS, and that song was played every hour and sometimes twice if a request came from high enough, in place of the National Anthem at signoff, and wedged into every bad spot produced for the next three or four years. Not to mention every single retirement ceremony, retrospective video, and even after the National Anthem at sporting events. If I ever have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lee Greenwood, I’m going to give him such a pinch! I hate that song. I hear it in my worst nightmares. The ones with clowns. And sock puppets. ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/63 "2004-10-13T21:17:29Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > And a quick trip to Google tells me I’m wrong about the song being written in reaction to the Gulf War. You get that point, Mr. Greenwood. Oh yes, that piece of crap has been around much longer. It came out around the same time as several other patriotic country songs. There were all these has been, and never been country artists spewing their love for America. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/64 "2004-10-14T02:18:08Z")
> [@hillbilly queen](#): > > Oh yes, that piece of crap has been around much longer. It came out around the same time as several other patriotic country songs. There were all these has been, and never been country artists spewing their love for America. I was very surprised to learn that the song was written in 1983. I have absolutely no recollection of it prior to Gulf War I. And until this thread you probably could have convinced me that it came out post 9/11. FWIW Lee Greenwood was born in 1943, which makes him too young for Korea, and perhaps too old for most of Vietnam. My father also falls into that category. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/65 "2004-10-14T02:48:10Z")
> [@FaerieBeth](#): > > Every child in my school can sing that song. My children can sing that song. Last year, in the movie theater, they played that song before the movie and everyone sang. It has now surpassed “The Song that Never Ends” on my all-time list of ferociously irritating songs. _My_ child can not only sing the song, she can also sign it in ASL. The one saving grace of this is that I finally was able to make her quit singing it out loud, so she’d just be in the middle of the room, signing and mouthing the damn thing. Although I did get a little giggle out of the image of my nine-year-old girl being thankful that her wife and children had been spared from disaster. The first fifty or sixty times I was subjected to it. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/66 "2004-10-14T03:01:16Z")
> [@InternetLegend](#): > > Although I did get a little giggle out of the image of my nine-year-old girl being thankful that her wife and children had been spared from disaster. The first fifty or sixty times I was subjected to it. Through the (very good) beer induced fog I’m starting to put two and two together. Lee Greenwood wrote this song in 1983. What were his wife and daughter saved from in that timeframe? I don’t recall any major disasters, although those brain cells may be missing. Did he know that the September 11th thing was coming? Ronnie was still in his first term, no one knew who WJ Clinton\* was, much less who Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, etc. Khadaffi may have been on the radar. The Ayatollah and Oliver North were conspiring, but nobody was much aware of it. Was he afraid of Admiral Poindexter? Cubans invading Grenada? The Sandinistas? Radio Clash? ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/67 "2004-10-14T13:01:01Z")
Personally, I find the song in question to be more objectionable than more traditional patriotic songs mostly because it is a recent song (relatively speaking, and I first heard it in '88 or '89 sung by a junior high school student friend of mine). I vote you teach your child the words to “God Bless my S.U.V.” (same tune as “God bless the U. S. A.”) lyrics by the Capitol Steps. It will help teach your child(ren) the proper American values of being fat, me-centered, driving an enormous, gas-guzzling S.U.V. with a Starbucks in the rear and most of all being proud of yyourself and your country no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/68 "2004-10-14T13:17:34Z")
By the way, [The Capitol Steps](http://www.capsteps.com) do have a website, but don’t have “God Bless my SUV” referred to anywhere on it that I could see. Still, who knows what other subversive songs one could find there to teach your children? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/69 "2004-10-14T14:25:02Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Being “proud” of where you were born strikes me, as it does a some others in this thread, as odd. > > But it’s that “at least” thing that really gets me. “At least” is a phrase you use when things are pretty sucky, but not at their very worst. I’m glad to hear there’s a bunch of us who read it that way. It really is awkward phrasing. But the song itself is awful. I also don’t particularly like the “Star-Spangled Banner.” It’s a terrible melody and difficult to sing. I mean, hey, even the Canadians have a better national anthem with “Oh Canada.” 😉 I really loved tuning into Expos-Cubs games as a kid just so I can hear them play it. I wish “America the Beautiful” had been chosen as the national anthem. That song is soulful, simple, understandable, condusive to interesting orchestrations, sounds great in four-part harmony, etc… But, like some other posters, I’ve found mindless patriotism to be a totally foreign concept to me. I’m not _proud_ to be an American. I’m usually glad to be one, but there’s plenty of other places I would have also been glad to have been born. If I had moved here by choice, as an immigrant, then different story. But as an accident of time and place? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/70 "2004-10-14T15:57:47Z")
I was one of those kids that was forced to sing this og-awful piece of glurge when I was in school. I was in 6th grade when the Gulf War broke out (or rather the pilot episode was shown to be a big hit) and I was turning into a crabby teen at the time. I hated this song with a passion, hated the war, hated HW Bush and hated all my teachers for putting me through all this yellow ribbon baloney and playing that song EVERY SINGLE DAY. I do believe we had some kind of an assembly where some kids from our class performed this song. _gag_ I did like the soldier our class wrote to, tho. He was cool and he came to visit us, and he especially liked my letter. ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/71 "2004-10-14T17:32:45Z")
You know what song really rocks? “[The Shot Heard 'Round The World](http://www.school-house-rock.com/Shot.html)” from Schoolhouse Rock. Why can’t the kiddies sing that one? (Complete lyrics [here](http://www.postdiluvian.org/~gilly/Schoolhouse_Rock/HTML/history/shot.html).) It’s got a bunch of american history in there and it has a good tune. I have a copy of Ween doing a cover of that song and I am only a little embarrassed to say sometimes it actually makes me shed a tear or two, thinking about the American Revolutionaries and what they did and went through. Plus, its Schoolhouse Rocks! How can you beat that? ---
**Author:** ![PhalPhoto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PhalPhoto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhalPhoto)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/72 "2004-10-14T18:26:01Z")
They sing this one at a lot of the functions at “on post” schools (military bases) too. I agree it’s not a great song and it’s pretty easy to classify it quickly as tripe. But when I go to these functions, some of the kids (parents too) start crying at this part: > [@](#): > > And I won’t forget the men who died > who gave that right to me Of course, many of them have moms and dads in Iraq or Afghanistan right now. They are proud of their parents, scared they won’t come home, and missing them. Sometimes I think they should choose something less emotional for the kids, other times I can see the value in the song helping them express their feelings. I guess my point is that I don’t ever find it offensive. It’s certainly no worse than sitting through “Folksongs from Around the World” or “Songs for Mother Earth” or some such. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/73 "2004-10-14T22:32:31Z")
What’s wrong with “She’s A Grand Old Flag”? Fun, peppy, fast-paced, and glurge-free. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/74 "2004-10-15T00:32:46Z")
I did find an external link to [“God Bless My SUV”](http://www.capsteps.com/sounds/suv.mp3) on the Capitol Steps website. Fairly amusing parody. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/75 "2004-10-15T00:58:31Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > The part that steams my ankles is, “…at least I know I’m free.” That sets a sheepish tone. “Hey, we’re not so bad, at least I know I’m free.” My recollection is that this song came out when farm foreclosure was a big issue. Lots of family farms in the Midwest and South were falling to the auctioneer’s gavel. (In the same era, John Mellencamp came out with “Rain on the Scarecrow,” and a group of artists got together for the first Farm Aid.) The video to “Proud to Be an American” started with the singer’s farm being auctioned off at such a sale. This is the loss to which he is referring in the first verse. This song has always bugged me, too, because it’s message seemed to be: “Even though the system screwed me, rather than look at whether there is a problem with the system, I will mindlessly die to defend it. And hey, you should feel the same way, if you’re an American. Now shut up and salute.” When taken with the video, the song seems to discourage dissent in favor of fascisistic patriotic fervor. I don’t like “Shut up and salute” songs. I don’t like the anti-individualism of it. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/76 "2004-10-15T01:01:01Z")
Oh, and the “at least” part relates to the lost family farm, as in, “Well, my farm is gone, but at least I’m free.” Now shut up and salute. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/77 "2004-10-15T01:08:32Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > It will help teach your child(ren) the proper American values of being fat, me-centered, driving an enormous, gas-guzzling S.U.V. with a Starbucks in the rear and most of all being proud of yyourself and your country no matter what. Damn. I drink Starbucks, I like big loud noisy machines, but I can’t put on the weight. Is 2 out of 3 OK? Am I a bad person? ROFL I’m gonna go looking for that song. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/78 "2004-10-15T01:12:29Z")
Where the Greenwood song is really inferior (aside from the lack of a decent tune) is in lines like these: “they can’t take that away” and “at least I know I’m free”. This defensiveness is unsuitable for a good patriotic song. > [@Krokodil](#): > > In his new book, In the Shadow of No Towers, Art Spiegelman writes about how, not long after 9/11, he found himself in Indiana, saw some doorway adorned with American flag bunting, and he knew exactly how Vampires felt about garlic. For anyone who wants to influence American public opinion, this is precisely the the most foolish and self-destructive attitude one can take. As for “The Shot Heard Round The World”: _Now at famous Bunker Hill, Even though we lost, it was quite a thrill._ This sound like the oft-repeated refrain of Red Sox fans. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/79 "2004-10-15T01:22:35Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > My recollection is that this song came out when farm foreclosure was a big issue. Lots of family farms in the Midwest and South were falling to the auctioneer’s gavel… > The video to “Proud to Be an American” started with the singer’s farm being auctioned off at such a sale. … “Even though the system screwed me, rather than look at whether there is a problem with the system, I will mindlessly die to defend it. And hey, you should feel the same way, if you’re an American. Now shut up and salute.” Looking at it this way, it makes it easier to see how so many people loved the James gang, the Youngers, and Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah I got forced off my land by crooked bankers and the sheriff threatened to lock me up if I don’t leave the county, and all my cash money vanished when the bank closed and the coal mining company owns my soul and the railroad baron sent hired guns to kill me , but hey! I’m free! ROFL :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837/80 "2004-10-15T01:23:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > As for “The Shot Heard Round The World”: > > _Now at famous Bunker Hill, > Even though we lost, it was quite a thrill._ > > This sound like the oft-repeated refrain of Red Sox fans. :rolleyes: No, it sounds more like us Mets fans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proud-to-be-an-american-the-song/268837.md?page=5)