Countless men and women have died defending the flag. It is but a small humble act for us to defend it. –Sen. Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican

Not to put too fine a point on it, but…Bill Frist’s comment above, like so many similar statements made during the debate over the proposed flag desecration amendment last week, is a big steaming pile of pandering, sentimental and contemptible bullshit. American men and women do not die protecting the flag. A flag is not a nation or its citizens, a symbol of freedom is not freedom, and war is not a game of paintball, where the winner is the team that captures the other side’s standard.

I was going to write more about this issue, but instead I want to direct you to my friend CJ Janovy’s excellent essay on flag burning and freedom of speech. You can read the first few graphs below, then link to the site of Pitch, the Kansas City alternative weekly where CJ is managing editor.

Also below, I’ve included two versions of the Starkweathers’ song she writes about, “Burn the Flag.” The first is from the group’s long out of print cd-debut, 5-Song EP; the second version (and I’d say superior thanks to the group sing-a-long that suggests the need for a whole community of rebellion out there) is available on the Bloodshot Records anniversary celebration, For a Decade of Sin.

Several other flag numbers below as well. The Bottle Rockets’ “Wave that Flag” and Marvin Gaye’s classic rendering of “Star-Spangled Banner” both, albeit in very different ways, interrogate America even as they express devotion. They are patriotic, in the best good of the term. (And even that’s debatable. See Robert Jensen’s “Saying Goodbye to Patriotism” at The Reading List.) Elton Britt, on the other hand, offers some far less nuanced flag waving from deep within the second world war, and Merle Haggard expresses his disgust at the Supreme Court decision that recognized flag burning as protected speech. I nominate this as the worst song in Hag’s career: maudlin and jingoistic and just plain back-assward dumb, especially when he argues that, since we can burn the flag, we might as well go ahead and burn up the Bill of Rights too.

Finally, Michael Franti & Spearhead urge us to stand up and object to where American’s headed on this Fourth of July–and to fight back. I think Franti would second the emotion of the Starkweathers “Burn the Flag” with a raised fist: “If you don’t love it, change it. It don’t have to be this way. Use guns or votes or maybe smile and sing, Burn the flag.”

Burn the Flag: You Know, Smoke ‘em While You Got ‘em

by CJ Janovy at Pitch

It’s a smoky, beer-soaked night at Davey’s, sometime around 1994. Onstage are the Starkweathers, a Kansas City band named after a Nebraska serial killer. They pound out real country — electric, twangy and raw — unlike the hat acts from Nashville. Somewhere during the set they pass around one of those antique-looking gray- and-brown ceramic whiskey jugs, and everyone takes a swig.

The lead singer is Rich Smith, and before the night’s over, he’ll barrel into what will become the Starkweathers’ signature song.

Burn the flag, he’ll sing. Rip it up.

The tune is fast and catchy, the lyrics simple: Don’t let ‘em ram it down your throat if you don’t want. Speak your mind. Stand right up. Yeah burn the flag. Burn it up.

The Starkweathers start the song with the chorus, and the verses that follow make it clear they’re not mindless hooligans. Sure enough a lot of people died to keep this country free, Smith acknowledges, and he’s proud of the “redneck blood” that runs through his own veins. But, he warns, he won’t join no big parade when they wave that thing to cover up their shame.

Then it’s back to the chorus. Burn the flag.

Smith takes his concerns global. Well, I ain’t just a talkin’ bout the ol’ red, white and blue, he notes. It could be the Stars and Bars, Union Jack, Rising Sun — it’s any flag they wave to keep you hypnotized.

By this time, the audience is singing along with Smith’s infectiously subversive chorus.

Burn the flag.

His final verse twists the Vietnam-era slur against anti-war protesters and challenges: If you don’t love it, change it. It don’t have to be this way. The actions any disgusted American could take? Well, there’s a range of possibilities, and Smith’s wink at the end softens his first, redneck reaction: Use guns or votes or maybe smile and sing …

Burn the flag.

Like too many things of beauty, the Starkweathers didn’t last long….

Read the rest of Janovy’s “Burn the Flag”

*****

Marvin Gaye “Star Spangled Banner” available on the four-disc set The Master (Motown, 1995)

The Bottle Rockets “Wave That Flag” from the out-of-print Bottle Rockets (East Sdie Digital, 1993) [The flag atop this post, by the way, is an 1856 Admit Kansas Free flag, a version of the Stars ‘n’ Stripes I suspect Brian Henneman and the Rockets would much prefer to the Stars ‘n’ Bars they’re singing about in “Wave that Flag.”]

Elton Britt “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere” from 1942 and available on The RCA Years (Collector’s Choice, 1997)

Merle Haggard “Me and Crippled Soldiers” from Blue Jungle (Curb, 1990)

The Starkweathers “Burn the Flag” from the out-of-print 5-Song EP (Faye, )

The Starkweathers “Burn the Flag” available on For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records (Bloodshot, 2005)

Michael Franti & Spearhead “Yell Fire!” from Yell Fire (Anti, 2006)

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