by JerseyGMy favorite "patriotic song" (if I ever really had one) would be “America the Beautiful.”
It was written by a woman named Katherine Lee Bates after a trip to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado in 1893. Obviously, she was quite impressed with the view of the “purple mountain majesty,” and rightly so. It was later put to music by Samuel A Ward.
I always thought that stirring song should be our national anthem. It beats the hell out of the Star Spangled Banner with it’s war honoring “bombs bursting in air" lyrics and hard to hit high notes. In contrast, America the Beautiful is an inspiring (and easy to sing) melodic tune about the physical beauty of our land and the struggle of our forebearers to establish a nation free of tyranny.
Damn, how things have changed since Katherine stood atop that mountain. Since then, our beautiful landscape has been raped, pillaged and plundered. Our spacious skies of blue have turned gray from pollution and chemtrailing. Our amber waves of grain have been processed into poisonous substances which “the corporation” passes off as food. The “liberty in law” that the song sings of? Well, we all know what has happened to that.
Yes, “America the Beautiful” paints such pretty images of this vast country of ours and the principles upon which it was founded. For me, that song has always had the ability to bring tears to my eyes whenever the music would start to play. I can’t lie to you. It still does, but for very different reasons now.
All things considered, I think that the Star Spangled Banner turned out to be the more appropriate choice for the national anthem after all. It seems the one thing that has remained constant in our nation, lo these many years, is the militaristic love of those “bombs bursting in air.”
Amerika the Ugly
(sung to the tune “America the Beautiful”)
By jerseyg
Oh horrendous are the chemtrailed skies
The rows of gm corn
The mountains stripped of dignity
By mining tactics scorned.
Amerika! Amerika!
God has forsaken thee
We’ve lost our goods
To Big Brotherhood
From sea to shilling sea.
jersey
ReplyDeleteCool
But........
I like the Cheerleaders National Anthem
Oh say can you see
by the blue tvs light
when democracy failed
and wall street was scheming
the jail stripes and iron bars
left the ghettos in scars
from our sofas we watched
as the nation was screaming
and the missiles red glare
star wars nukes in the air
if you're not rich and white
then your rights are stripped bare
Oh say will that blood-spattered dollar still reign--
in the land of corporate greed,
and the home of the slave.
OooOOooo first I heard that..good one! Did you write that?
ReplyDeleteJersey
ReplyDeleteLOLOL
Nope, can't claim that credit but I have sang it a few times.
It was the New York Radical Cheerleaders who penned this beauty.
BTW COTO family, ya wanna hear something horribly ironic?
I was just listening to Peter Gabriel's song Steve Biko on You Tube
Then CNN came on with the breathless news of the death of Michael Jackson.
Yes my daughter had to call me with the news.. I posted a news flash since most of us don't watch tv..i turned it on and it's all over cable news
ReplyDeletelol Rady.. Don't Diebold that vote..that's hysterical and the picture is priceless! I love song parodies. I'm going to read the rest tomorrow when my eyes aren't so blurry from crying over MJ...boo hoo . I never can say goodbye.. no no no no ......
ReplyDeleteRady, I have mixed feelings about him. He was obviously a tortured soul. Was he talented? Hell yes! However, as a mother of a son, I have a real problem with his luring little boys to neverland to satisfy whatever his lurid fantasy was.
ReplyDeleteBecause he was a super star, a single 45 year old man, got away with locking little boys in his bedroom with him overnight not just once but repeatedly. What normal single man would get away with such a thing? Money talks.
Yes, MJ was a sick man but he was also a manipulative liar and used children as toys. That is not ok in my book.
thanks Rady. I actually tried posting my own article at oen. However, I got hung up choosing the "tags" and wound up inadvertently hitting the back button or something and lost the whole thing, got really pissed and never tried again !
ReplyDeleteCheerleader? Me? LOL.. not hardly. Just ask Major Tom or Tremlett or Leser, or Linda Milazzo who I know hates my guts for disagreeing with one of her articles..Though I never hesitate in telling someone I agree with their point of view... .I also have no problem telling them I disagree!
Rady
ReplyDeleteI belong to a group of Christmas Carollers called
the Counter Propaganda Carollers.
We would go thru places like the ode to corporate over consumption known as the Mall of America.
My favorite song, to this day is the 12 Lies of the Media.
On the First day of Christmas, the media lied to meeeee.........
Max Your Credit to fix the economyyyyyyyyyy.........
Jersey
ReplyDeleteI disagree....
LOLOL
Jersey Girl, that was brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI can just see me flying the flag upside down here, in Philly. The sheople, most of whom haven't a clue as to what is transpiring in our country and world, and who are too busy watching inane programs which assuage their cortexes with blatant mendacity. I'd be shunned from the block.
My country, tis of thee, sweet land of tyranny of thee I sing
If I could just mention one quick story.
Several years ago I mentioned to my one Republican neighbor of mine, the "billions" unaccounted for in Iraqi reconstruction. Being it was the Retuglicans in office, his reply was "they all do it."
So, fast forward to 2009 and this same person is cryin the Blues. You see, his 401k is now a 201. Yet he still remains credulous. he doesn't believe what he reads on the "Internets."
Speakin of the Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlRpxyY_QkY
Ahhh thanks Munich. As for flying that flag upside down, if you do that ANYWHERE in the U.S. today you might possibly be hauled off by the men in black for suspicion of being a homegrown terrorist. I remember that lady at christmas time that was arrested for not taking down her lighted peace symbol decoration. This is not America.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I work with a few people just like your neighbor. Do they or do they not make you want to bang your head against the nearest wall?
Damn, that Stevie Ray could really play that geetar and sing the blues.... as usual, thanks for the musical interlude ;)