V.S. 
Posted on 08/25/2002 7:22:25 PM PDT by Pokey78
A redneck country singer is tops with the guys in uniform. No wonder Dubya invited him to the White House
Driving across America is to traverse a mosaic of local radio stations. Outside the metropolitan areas, two kinds of programme dominate: the God channels and "C&W". Bible-bashers threatening hellfire and fat guys with silly hats, twanging geetars, fu-manchus and pony tails, serenading purty gals, Chevy Tahoes, bars duskily lit by Budweiser neon, and the "real" values of red neck and blue collar.
Both are profoundly ideological - country even more so than the Lord in these post-9/11 times. Country is homeland.
Since July, one song has dominated the C&W charts, Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American). It's not just the guitar plucker who is angry. Keith's "patriotic hit" has enraged liberals (what's left of them). He was scheduled to do the show-opener in the ABC's big July 4 TV celebration but was dropped at the last minute at the insistence of the presenter, Paul Jennings.
Jennings is from that distinguished generation of newscasters who dragged middle America back from the Vietnam madness. He rejects the doctrine that America's foreign policy is best conducted by B52. Jennings took particular exception to the chorus: "Oh, justice will be served / And the battle will rage / This big dog will fight if you rattle his cage / You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A / Cause we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way."
(If you haven't heard it, Keith's song has a melodic resemblance to Don McLean's American Pie - gentler chauvinism, for a more thoughtful time.) The bit about the boot in the ass (which is, patriotically, not bleeped in broadcasts) gets wild applause at Keith's concerts. Nowadays, the singer dedicates the song to Peter Jennings ("He's Canadian, isn't he?") which gets a sarcastic roar. In a bizarre evocation of the film Wag the Dog, Senator Zell Miller (Georgia) sent Paul Jennings a pair of boots. Others followed.
The commander-in-chief of the Marines fighting in Afghanistan has, reportedly, told Keith, "Look, the country needs this song."
Toby's tops with the guys in uniform. He has given an invitation concert on the battleship New Jersey and has done a triumphant tour of US bases in former Yugoslavia, kicking ass all the way. Oliver North (remember him?) tells listeners to his talk show that it's their patriotic duty to buy Keith's record. But it doesn't need Ollie's endorsement.
When the single was reissued on the CD Unleashed, with a picture of Toby and a pit bull out-scowling each other, the album sold 338,000 copies in its first week. On the 9/11 anniversary, sales will go nova.
America likes to see itself as the world's mad dog. Keith's battle hymn of George Bush's republic climaxes with the rabid threat: "Hey, Uncle Sam put your name / At the top of his list / And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist/ And the eagle will fly / And there's gonna be hell / When you hear Mother Freedom start a-ringin' her bell / And it'll feel like the whole wide world / is rainin' down on you / Brought to you courtesy / Of the Red White and Blue."
"This," Keith explains blandly, "was the way everybody felt when they saw those two buildings fall." And who is the "you" on whom "hell" will rain? Think axis of evil. Think blood, rubble and revenge.
Dubya, country to the core, loves Keith. After Jennings boycotted him Bush personally invited the singer to the White House, to play the Star Spangled Banner (shades of Hendrix) at a presidential dinner. And who, you ask, was Clinton's favourite singer? That self-confessed fag ("Everybody hurts") Michael Stipe. A wimp president's wimp. Angry American, Ugly American. What's the difference?
LOL
Even so, I would be pleased to see a boot go up his ass.
Now The Who, Scorpions and probably a few of that genre that I can't remember I'll thank them for but they're in the minority.
Oh goody the limeys have finally shown their true colors! I love it! Always remember fellow american citizens it's the british and their beloved commonwealth of nations against you and your rights, always pride yourself that you are no longer attached at the hip to these people.
This is the Guardian. They represent the most liberal of what you call the limeys. Don't judge a country by it's most liberal newspaper. Do you want the rest of the world to judge the U.S. by what is published in the New York Times?
V.S.
There are some of those liberals who actually have. On one hand they aren't hypocrites since they plan on retiring there, but on the other hand they are because they are doing it as DOD civilians and contractors meaning that they don't have the same tax burdens as regular euros. Those jerks are living a lie on our dime.
I know because I worked in Germany as a DOD civ for a while.
Also, I can't confirm this yet, but I believe that 'same-sex partner' benefits are provided for DOD civs in Europe since living there is such a 'hardship'. Lot's of them I figured were homos but never paid attention until I got that info after moving back to the States.
9% of Frenchmen NEVER wash their hands =^)
The British military is supurb and you couldn't find better men to stand beside you in a fight, the British people USED to be the same way. Basically, I believe, that somewhere under all that dripping liberalism, there remains the stiff spine of a stoic and courageous people.
I long for the day when they all step forward.
Actually, "redneck" began as a derogative term for the Irish by the English. "Hillbilly" was a similarly uncomplimentary name for the Scots.
I've been meaning to buy Unleashed ever since they started playing its songs on the radio. Need to drop into a music store this week.
You mean some Irish peasant, working out of doors, getting a red neck from long days in the field, while some absentee fop swilled tea??? I guess I was completely wrong ;-)
Pretty much, but I believe it actually referred to his red hair.
Hey, HEY, HEY! Watch the friendly fire here, ok?
Sincerely, from a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, with a Prodigy CD in the car stereo (I hear it gives ya' dain bramage!) and who would do Bjork in a heartbeat ('specially a couple o' years back, before her "lifestyle" caught up with her)....
Toby Keith's song rocks (and I LOATHE country music...)!
Uhhhh, his name is PETER Jennings Beavis and Jennings is a Canadian.
I am surprised he spelled, A-M-E-R-I-C-A correctly.
I take it this clown is not a Cambridge graduate. The distinguished Soho School of Journalism must have really enjoyed his 50 quid in annual tution.
The psychology of envy is that when you recognize the importance of something (like military and political power) and know you are lacking in it, the only thing you can do is to destroy the posessor of it. The sun didn't use to set on the British Empire, but it has now. Shed a tear for the British they are now U.K.'S. Soon Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will escape their clutches and we can go back to calling them English.
Yeah I know what you mean Bjork used to be kinda cute about 10 years ago.
I generally loathe country music myself, but some of it has been getting under my skin recently. Probably because of the part of the country that I am in.
Uh oh! All bets are off! The idiot box is on in the background and the Anna Nicole Smith show came on a few minutes ago. I'll never slam anyone else's popular culture again. That witch is purely disgusting. And her little hanger-on eunich assistant or whatever he is. Good God when she's trying to look halfway decent she still looks like Tammy Faye Bakker. I think I'm gonna hurl.
Are you sure?
According to wordorigins.com, "(R)edneck dates to 1830, when it was first used to denote the Presbyterians of Fayetteville," whose necks were red because of anger, sunburn or pellagra.
Hillbilly, according to word-detective.com (citing the Oxford English Dictionary) was first recorded in New York in 1900: "The earliest written occurrence of the term on record is from the New York Journal of 1900, which defined a 'hillbilly' as 'a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.'"
I guess that makes me a hillbilly.
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