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Lee Greenwood Pulled Off the Greatest Protest Song Hoax in American History
God Bless the USA is actually subversive satire. You just missed it.
Let’s set the stage: It’s 1984. Ronald Reagan is riding high on a wave of patriotic fervor, and Bruce Springsteen has just dropped Born in the USA, a cliched jingoistic anthem tailor made for the times. Reagan’s campaign, blasting it out of tinny-sounding speakers at every campaign stop.
Enter Lee Greenwood with a song so earnest it’ll make you think Norman Rockwell was cynical.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Greenwood’s flag-waving opus is part of a grand tradition of musical tit-for-tat that goes back decades.
Rewind to 1940. Irving Berlin, the guy who wrote White Christmas pens God Bless America. It’s a love letter to the nation, wrapped in a melody so sweet it’ll give you cavities.
But not everyone’s buying it.
Woody Guthrie, patron saint of folk protest, hears Berlin’s saccharine serenade and fires back with This Land Is Your Land, a subtle middle finger to Berlin’s rosy view of America.
Fast forward to 1984. Bruce Springsteen, channeling his inner Irving Berlin, crafts Born in the USA.
