Parsing a Country Song - “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” #1
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
April 12, 2008
I often hear country music songs that try to convince people to support certain political issues without actually presenting any real evidence. Their purpose is just to appeal to your emotions. Today I present the first two stanzas from Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” (the whole song would be too long, so I’ll continue this in the future).
American girls and American guys
Well always stand up and salute
Well always recognize
When we see old glory flying
Theres a lot of men dead
So we can sleep in peace at night
When we lay down our head
My daddy served in the army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out in our yard
Until the day that he died
He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the land of the free.
So he starts out by explaining a familiar experience, where you feel thankful for the people who gave their lives to make this country a better place. But then he goes on to talk about his own personal experience, where he links his dad’s military service to the flag and the freedom. He chooses not to mention that his dad served in Korea, where our freedom wasn’t really at stake… it was more for the sake of protecting the Koreans, and we only kinda halfway accomplished the job. Also, he uses key emotional words like “served”, “lost”, “flag”, “died”, “brother/mother/sister”, “grow up”, “happy”, and “land of the free”. We automatically get a fuzzy feeling when we think about his dad serving in the army and flying the flag for his kids… it insinuates that the flag in the yard somehow directly allowed his kids to “grow up and live happy in the land of the free”.
I’ll grant the fact that patriotism tends to have a positive influence sometimes, but insinuating such a direct connection just causes people to be artificially inspired based on no actual facts. I actually find myself inspired every time I listen to that song too; when you combine the music with the lyrics, it triggers the release of hormones that makes me want to kill all the Muslims… which is pretty impressive, considering the fact that 100% of my relatives are Muslim.
Click here to see Part 2 of this article.
Popularity: 7% [?]
| 2.5 |
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
[…] keywords for people that asked him on another post here. Let’s take your last post for example Parsing a Country Song #1 | Globally Rational by the way Wordpress is saving them as numbers not as words. If you used music, Nashville, songs, […]
I think country songs tend to play on the patriotism of the listeners more than other types of music. I’m not much of a fan of country music, but it has some valid and true songs. There are some songs that envoke those type of feelings in me as well. Don’t Tread On Me by Metallica is one for sure! Without looking them up I believe the lyrics go something like;
“So be it, settle the score. To secure peace is to prepare for war.”
I don’t get a feeling of wanting to be violent from it though it’s just comforting to be proud of the security you have accomplished.
i agree with you that sometimes certain information or propaganda are push towards us and getting us all inspired with no actual facts. it even makes me think that sometimes living in this world, you wouldn’t really know what is the correct and honest stuffs anymore. politicians say this and that and it is really hard to make a stand.. even thou i’m not from the US but i think same thing happens in my country and i guess everywhere else..
Hey I saw you on Bloggeries just now and I figured I’d drop in. I totally agree with your post. I think the music culture today is causing people to give in to another’s views without actually thinking. Society is being trained to do this and everyone needs to learn to take a step back and think for themselves in every situation.
Patriotic songs are always for the good, as every American should be patriotic to their country. Even if you do not believe in some of the actions your country is doing, either support your country, it get out and leave. We don’t force you to live here.
On another note. This song came out at a time in which all Americans were pretty pissed off. Even listening to the song now, and replaying it in my head, it makes me feel proud of my country, and the servicemen who are protecting it.
Just remember, you do not have to support everything the country does, just support the country. And remember the servicemen, even if they are fighting in a war that may seem to have no reasons to be in, they are over there fighting for us, and for our country, and not just playing patty cake with the neighbors.
The previous comment epitomizes the attitude that I was talking about in this post. If you don’t agree with your country’s actions, you shouldn’t “support them or get out”… that defeats the purpose of democracy. I don’t want the US to make crappy decisions while I either “support the country or get out”. I’d rather do my part to say why these actions are wrong so that I can make this a better place to live.
Personally, I think it’s more important to make the country better than it is to support everything they do. If my brother had a drug addiction, I wouldn’t support him; I’d try to make him better. In the same way, if my country is making bad decisions, I won’t support them and I’ll try to make them better.
I don’t have a qualm with the servicemen. I have a problem with the people who sent them there unnecessarily.
There’s nothing wrong with patriotism… I’m not complaining about patriotic songs like “God Bless America” or “America the Beautiful”. The problem is that some of these songs, like this one, promote hate without using any real facts.
Wow. I don’t know where to begin. I’m not going to get on here and ramble on in the comments. You appear to have that locked up.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting the very people keeping me safe from harm.
You make so many absolute statements based on YOUR opinion that I wouldn’t know where to start. You seem to invite comment than attack them if they don’t agree with you.There doesn’t appear to be any common ground for you I’m justa saying!
See I almost rambled on!!!!
Thanks for the suggestion, you’re probably right about the whole “rambling” thing. At the same time, I just don’t like it when people make major decisions because they’re emotionally charged. I support people who are keeping me safe from harm… I just don’t like it when people say “if you don’t like it, get out”. That’s not what makes a successful institution… any group (whether it’s a country, a company, a school, or whatever) is only successful if they find their problems and fix them, instead of blindly supporting everything that the leaders are doing.
[…] of the “parsing a country song” series, which I started a couple of weeks ago; click here to see the first article. Here is the third stanza and the […]
[…] appeal to your emotions. Today, let’d look at the first two stanzas from toby Keith??s ???Courtesyhttp://www.globallyrational.com/2008/04/12/parsing-a-country-song-1/CMT.com : Toby Keith : BiographyToby keith was born with the name toby keith Covel on July 8, 1961, […]