Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Greg Brown and Jimmy Lafave: I Want My Country Back


SONGS Homeland (I Want My Country Back)/This Land

WRITTEN BY Greg Brown/Jimmy Lafave


APPEAR ON In The Hills of California (2004)/Cimarron Manifesto (2007)

Conservative writers took advantage of the invasion of Iraq to attack liberals with such thoughtful tomes as Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror and Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. Liberal songwriters responded with expressions of simple patriotism that will appear on their set lists long after the work Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity has been consigned to the remainders bin. Indeed, Greg Brown's "Homeland (I Want My Country Back)" and Jimmy Lafave's "This Land" evoke the spirit of Woody Guthrie, tearing out after the fascists with their words and guitars.

When I saw Greg Brown in 2004, he came on stage quietly, began strumming his guitar, and sang these declarative words -- "I want my country back" -- in the sensitive, gruff bass that has become his signature. Brown declared both his allegiance and isolation:
Got my hand over my heart,
but I don't feel at home here any more
He then went on the slyly reclaim the Silent Majority as "Many quiet words of wisdom drowned out by TV" and called for a return to the true American values of Sojourner Truth and Chief Joseph. His cut at President Bush -- "Blind engineer, war train on the track" -- now seems more prescient than sarcastic.

Brown reserved his finest sally for the sunshine patriots:
Big, big flag above the big, big mall,
and the shake, rattle and roll to the core.
Things sprawl after they fall,
and I don't feel at home here any more
I have long resented the implicit message of the flag waving "Support the Troops" bumper stickers. They imply that, since my car doesn't have said bumper sticker, I don't support the troops and am somehow a lesser person for it. I'm grateful to Brown for taking on this mentality with thoughtfulness -- there's nothing snarky or snide about the way he warns that "Things sprawl after they fall" like a punch-drunk fighter lying unconscious in the ring.

Austin singer-songwriter Jimmy Lafave -- a longtime favorite of mine -- want his country back, too. The country he has lost was a community; the one he has now measures its success by the wealth of the few, sends the poor off to die in war, and strips those at home of their civil liberties. The symbols of it all are
...people
Just stranded by the road
They're hopeless and forgotten
Where all the milk and honey flows
Until we care for the "hopeless and forgotten", Lafave will respond in the best way he can: By bearing witness.
Traveling through this land
It's the only thing I know
To say my friends
I simply want my country back again
The Bush years are over but they are not gone. Their legacy lingers with the families who lost sons and daughters in Iraq, with the innocents tortured and jailed at Gitmo, with the millions of lives blasted by an unmanaged and unregulated economy. We don't have our country back yet, which is why these songs remain relevant. In fact, they'll always be relevant; to forget their message would be to risk losing our way again.

LYRICS: Homeland (I Want My Country Back)
I want my country back
and a good dream to stand up for.
Got my hand over my heart
but I don't feel at home here anymore

Big, big flag above the big, big mall
and shake rattle and roll to the core.
Things sprawl after they fall
and I don't feel at home here anymore

Home of Sojourner Truth
and Chief Joseph before,
Many quiet words of wisdom drowned out by TV
and I don't feel at home here anymore.

Blind engineer, war train on the track
many many a heart is sore.
We want our country back;
we want to feel at home here once more.

I want my country back.


LYRICS: This Land
Life is hard
Times are tough
And the ones who have too much
Seem to never get enough
Traveling through this land
Children dying
On some foreign soil
For God's sake won’t you tell me
What is all this fighting for
Traveling through this land
It’s the only thing I know
To say my friends
I simply want my country back again
Cause I went driving
Through the American night
And I slowly watched my freedoms
Disappear right out of sight
Traveling through this land
It’s the only thing I know
To say my friend
I simply want my country back again
Cause I see people
Just stranded by the road
They’re hopeless and forgotten
Where all the milk and honey flows
Traveling through this land

4 comments:

  1. Ah! I love Greg Brown; I've been listening to him since I first discovered him on the early A Prairie Home Companion back in the late '70s. This song might be a fairly new one, but it's vintage Greg Brown.

    The Jimmy LaFave song was new to me. In fact I'm not all that familiar with him in the first place; I've only heard him about twice as a guest on A Prairie Home Companion (that show again!). But it's very interesting to see the similarity in the themes of the two songs.

    It's interesting that the Lee Greenwoods in Nashville got loud and pushy with their "love it or leave it" songs soon after 9/11, and then amped it up after the invasion of Iraq. But there's a quiet stream of songs like these two coming out of the country/folk centers like Austin to counterbalance the chest-thumpers. And have you noticed that most of them end up on the stage of A Prairie Home Companion? Garrison Keillor has always loved sticking it to the Republicans!

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  2. Jimmy is excellent. A great Dylan interpreter, too. Cimarron Manifesto is a terrific CD.

    A friend from my bereavement group turned me on to Greg Brown. Man, what a gift to give someone! Have you ever heard him sing Pete Seeger's "Sailing Down My Golden River"? It's a beautiful thing.

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  3. I sat front row in a bar in Dallas in the early '90s for a Jimmy LaFave performance. Great night. On Jimmy Lafave Live -- 2 CDs -- he sings Dylan songs better than Dylan could ever dream of sounding.

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  4. I think that album is called Trail. It also includes a great cover of Bruce's "Valentine's Day." Jimmy is a terrific Dylan interpreter, one of the best. With maybe two exceptions, he includes at least one Dylan song on each of his albums.

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