Born in the U.S.A. is patriotic?
Not what I said. I said it ain't 'un-patriotic.'
Patriotic songs would be anything composed by John Phillip Sousa or the National Anthem or the themes of the branches of service, imo (I would include anything left out that appears on this list:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/patriotic/patriotic-home.html. Some may include these:
http://theboot.com/patriotic-songs/ but for me it would depend on my beer intake).
Anyhoo .... me and the guys I served with sang this song in a bar, loudly and boisterously, during Reagan's first term without one lick of remorse or regret:
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam so they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "son if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said "son don't you understand now"
Had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a long gone daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.
And yeah .....
Called for induction when he was 18, Springsteen failed his physical examination and did not serve in Vietnam. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984, he said, "When I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain't goin'." He had suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and this together with his "crazy" behavior at induction and not taking the tests was enough to get him a 4F.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen*ShruG*
I'm complex.
