At this momentous occasion of the 250th birthday of the United States of America, I would like to celebrate the country that so generously gave me citizenship as my birthright on its soil. While some may have the opportunity to celebrate this event in the record setting heatwave in the capital of the Paris Climate Accord abdicating country, I’ll do my part by sharing my favorite patriotic song, which summarizes the country so well.
Of course, the USA is massive – both in population and physical size – so it is impossible to give a comprehensive description of the nation and its peoples in short song. I instead focus on what the US is at this moment in time, on the day of its birthday. And what is a country, if not how it is governed and how it presents itself to the world? Though there are many wonderful patriotic songs from “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “America the Beautiful” to “Yankee Doodle”, these were written in a much different time, over 200 years ago. Better to focus on something more modern, a super recent song released in 1993 which is only 33 years ago.
There is a little bit of background that is worth sharing before getting into the meat of the song and what makes it great. Denis Leary’s whole stand-up person was being an asshole (which he may or may have not (but probably did) stolen from Bill Hicks) and it would seem unsurprising that such a song was written by him. However, the bit is allegedly stolen from a young Louis CK. [Link to Louie discussing it] I am inclined to believe Louie’s version. That is appropriately asshole-ish of Leary. That being said, the stolen part is the stand-up joke and concept. Writing a song is a big creative and transformative endeavor on its own and that was done solely by Leary and his co-writer. Though they should have probably still given credit to Louis CK.
The opening is verse is what Leary himself promises in the first line, that he will sing about the American Dream. He is only accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar, as he sings honey-filled notes about the simple beauty of American life. He sings gently, in a register lower than his usual voice.
I’m just a regular Joe
With a regular job
I’m your average white,
Suburbanite slob
He touches upon all the key points of what the American dream is: football, wife, kids, job, car. It is not unduly ambitions, happy with his “average house. Besides a couple of edgy words thrown in the mix for the sake of comedy, it sounds and feels like a classic country folk song.
This contentment does not last long. There comes a turn and with it the pitch of Leary’s voice goes up, and it transforms into his usual nasally, annoying timbre.
But sometimes, that just ain’t enough
to keep a man like me interested
No, I gotta go out and have fun
At someone else’s expense
That right there is quintessentially America.
It wasn’t enough sharing a continent with Native Americans. The US had to Manifest Destiny itself from shore to shore. It wasn’t enough to decide how it should run itself, the CIA had to go to each South American country and tell them how to run their countries. And how dare other countries in the Middle East sit there and have oil and not be bombed?
It comes out internally as well. There is all of Jim Crow laws and Redlining with the sole goal of keeping a portion of its own population from achieving the American Dream. And now the government is stripping away rights and benefits of its own citizens for the sake of lining the pockets of the elites in power. To use another apt phrase oft used in response to the policies of the current administration that is overseeing the birthday bash: “the suffering is the point.” Aka: Gotta have fun at someone else’s expense
Anyways, the song goes through various petty asshole behaviors, like pissing on public toilet seats, and almost in between every example returning to the short chorus of “I’m an Asshole”. The chorus features yodeling akin to Bluegrass or other similar genres. A perfect stylistic choice for the song, since country rock is undoubtedly the most American of all the music genres. Despite other genres like Blues or Hip-hop also originating from there, country rock is the only one that has basically no global appeal outside of the US borders.
The climax of the song is however the rambling rant which in the music video is presented as a parody of the iconic speech from the movie “Patton”. There is bitterness but also ample amounts of glee as Leary describes the ultimate asshole fantasy.
How he is going to get a ridiculous car with the worst fuel efficiency possible, with leather interior made from various animals. Of course it is always a car. There aren’t scores of examples of asshole actions in the song, yet cars get mentioned numerous times: driving slow on purpose, parking in handicap spots. Another core element of the DNA of the USA is the automobile.
Leary rants about how he purposefully wants to eat fast food out of the non-biodegradable containers and just chuck it out the window. The ultimate questions is: why do all that? Why be an asshole? The answer is as American as apple pie. Because he can. And because no one can stop him. Freedom.
You know why?
Because we’ve got the bomb, that’s why
Two words:
nuclear fucking weapons, okay?
Obviously, the song is comedic, an exaggerated joke. The song may end with the flatly delivered “I’m an asshole and I’m proud of it”, what immediately precedes is it the Leary and the backing vocals descending into animalistic barks while trying to spell out the word a-s-s-h-o-l-e. Within his rant we even get this chestnut:
Russia, Germany, Romania.
They can have all the democracy they want
They can have a big democracy cakewalk
Right through the middle of Tiananmen Square
I give enough benefit of the doubt to Leary that he does not genuinely believe that Russia and China are shining examples of democracy, especially when mentioning Tiananmen Square. All of this is also said while gloating about nuclear weapons, despite 2 of those 4 countries also having nukes themselves. Seems more of a joke of hubristic ignorance and how the average American is not all that sharp when it comes to geography and global geopolitics.
Of course, Poe’s law – the adage that without clear indication of authorial intent, any parody or sarcastic expression of extreme views will be mistaken by some as sincerely held beliefs – is in full effect with this song if we go spelunking in the comments section.
It does seem many view this song as aspiration rather than satirical critique. Though maybe I’m the fool, taking humor for sincerity. I think I can be forgiven, as it seems to be a time where openly being an asshole has become acceptable again. Leadership sets the standard. If you have the president calling reporters stupid and morons in press briefings it is no surprise that the slur “retarded” is making a comeback in the public lexicon. People don’t feel shame identifying as a Nazi. If Elon Musk can do a Sieg Heil on stage and still be the richest man in the world, why should they?
Anyways again, no American anthem would be complete without reminiscing about the good old days. To a time when America was really, really good and a desire to bring those times back. Leary – a man born in the 50s – lists of names of 60s and 70s Hollywood icons like John Wayne and John Cassevetes. He’s going to bring them all back!
So lets celebrate the US of A, the self-proclaimed Greatest Country on Earth, with all the core elements present in this wonderful patriotic song that is built upon the foundations of someone else’s work. Cars, country music, suburban living, nostalgia for past simplicity.
And, of course, being an asshole. And proud of it.
AWholeCroissant 