Shit-Spangled Drunkards — A modest history of Boebert’s Anthem

Shit-Spangled Drunkards

A modest history of Boebert’s Anthem

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 12th, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

According to a squib from Newsweek, “Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, took to Twitter on Sunday afternoon to complain about the Black National Anthem being performed during the Super Bowl…Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph is slated to perform ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ colloquially known as the Black National Anthem, ahead of the Sunday night football game…’America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM, she tweeted. ‘Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.’”

Well, Bobo the Bozo usually has her knickers in a knot over one damn fool thing or another, and it’s usually something pretty idiotic. I don’t suppose we should tell her that the penalty flags are going to be all rainbow-colored for the Superbowl, or that the players have to hold it until half-time, and then they can only pee in the litter boxes provided. She might open a Congressional investigation or something.

Fact is, America did just fine without a national anthem throughout the Revolutionary War. OK, it wasn’t a country yet, but if they show a video at some right-wing conference showing revolutionary soldiers waving the stars and stripes and babbling about bombs bursting in air, know ye that it’s complete and utter bullshit. Neither the anthem nor the flag existed then.

And despite the folklore and Francis Off Key’s act of plagiarism in the War of 1812, the US didn’t have an anthem then. Now, the English did have one, about God Saving Old Codswallop, and they burned Washington, so people may have started thinking that bad songs sung in a patriotic fervor might help.

No national anthem during the Civil War, although people had all kinds of patriotic songs they could bellow out while getting their spines shot out or dying of dysentery. (The latter was much more common, but not nearly as heroic.)

Fought a bunch of little wars without an anthem, killed most of the native population, and began the corporate enslavement of Central America, all without buffoons yodeling about the glare of rockets. Fought WW1, with flu replacing dysentery as the number one foe, and while the song was catching on as the national song, there was nothing “official” about it. People sang it to get a sense of community, exactly like some people sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” now. Heartfelt and meant to be constructive.

It didn’t become The National Anthem (r) (c) until 1931, when the gods of capitalism had turned the economy to utter shit, and their Republican lapdogs didn’t have a clue what to do about it. Like many things Republican, it was a gesture, meant to instill pride and patriotism. If nothing else, it made Republicans who had wrecked the country look patriotic, showing how little the party has changed in the past 90-odd years.

It was based on a song written for an upper-crust mens’ glee club in London back in 1776 by the otherwise reputable English composer John Stafford Smith, it had the same dirge as a tune, but the lyrics went like this:

To Anacreon in Heaven, where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be;
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle, and flute, no longer be mute,
I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot
And besides I’ll instruct you like me to intwine
The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.

Now, I have to wonder if Bobo would be so eager to proclaim it high art if she knew it was asking her to intwine her myrtle with some Greek’s grapevine. Tingle her mingle, so to speak. It was briefly popular amongst London hoi polloi, who delighted in mawkish, pretentious pseudo-classical drivel.

While quickly forgotten, the music became a hit (repurposed) in the pubs, where maudlin, self-pitying songs get real popular after about the eighth pint. The lyrics then became:

Oh! who has not seen by the dawn’s early light,
Some poor bloated drunkard to his home weakly reeling,
With blear eyes and red nose most revolting to sight;
Yet still in his breast not a throb, of shame feeling!
And the plight he was in—steep’d in filth to his chin,
Gave proof through the night in the gutter he’d been,
While the pity-able wretch would stagger along,
To the shame of his friends, ’mid the jeers of the throng.

Well, by god, if that doesn’t inspire you to go out and shoot down some Chinese balloons or call Joe Biden a senile old fool, I don’t know what will! No sailor in the US Navy could hear that and not think of shore leave in Saigon.

So anyway, that’s what Bobo stands for. A song that is the bastard offspring of a shell-shocked war correspondent, some Lord Byron wannabees, and a chorus of shit-faced drunks reeling in London’s black fogs “midst the stews and the filth.” I could take issue with the religious elements of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” but at least it’s honest. It doesn’t try to present some broke-down old tuppence bag as a Grande Dame of Society.

But since I like to make Bobo squeal, I have a suggestion. Get rid of the national anthem. Nobody can sing it, it’s depressing, and the lyrics start out stupid and get flat-out revolting in the later verses. Replace it with the song that TRULY captures the spirit of America: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”

This Land Is Your Land Lyrics from genius.com

[Verse 1]

This land is your land and this land is my land

From the California to the New York island

From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me

[Verse 2]

As I went walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

Saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me

[Verse 3]

I roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

All around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me

[Verse 4]

When the sun comes shining then I was strolling

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling

A voice come chanting as the fog was lifting

This land was made for you and me

——————–

The following verses are not included in this recording

[Verse 4]

As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there

And that sign said “No trespassin'”

But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!

Now that side was made for you and me!

[Verse 6]

In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple

Near the relief office – I see my people

And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’

If this land’s still made for you and me

You can sing it, and you don’t have to be pretentious or pissed to do so.

Lyrics and general history of the Star-Spangled Banner provided by Britannica.com.

 

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