[promoted by BooMan. I love the video.]
Update [2007-2-23 11:1:54 by BooMan]: Returned to diaries for better exposure.
During the football season, the one commercial I kept see of was John Mellencamp’s song “Our Country.” I will admit, I was not impressed with it. I not impressed that Mellencamp and Chevy co-opted together to sell one of Chevy’s gas guzzling pickup trucks by using the images of Rosa Parks, MLK, the Vietnam War, the Katrina disaster, and 9/11. I guess I was not the only one who felt this way. In fact, some went so far to call him a sellout.
After seeing the commercial for the un-teenth time, I was going to make my own version of the music video. Funny thing, I had no earthly idea how I was going to do it. So, I put it off for a couple of months, until recently. With all this racism and anti-Brown people talk, I just got inspired and I was on a mission do it.
I realized I did not need any fancy software do it; all I needed were some photos and the song and that I had. I also researched the lyrics to make sure everything would make sense. When I did this, I found this blog, DownWithTyranny! which actually wrote about the song before it was released. It seemed that the song had another purpose than being a flag waving song, like Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
The blogger writes:
It’s the kind of song that will help bind together that which has been so violently torn asunder by Bush, Cheney, Rove and the vicious partisan and self-serving brutes that make up the bandit Regime that has gotten its hands– through hook and crook– on the levers of power in America.
With that in mind, here is my version of John Mellencamp‘s “Our Country.”
The first three verses of the song:
I can stand beside
Things I think are right
And I can stand beside
The idea of stand and fight
And I do believe
There’s a dream for everyone
This is our country
From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our countryThere’s room enough here
For science to live
And there’s room enough here
For religion to forgive
And try to understand
The other people of this world
This is our country
From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our countryThat poverty could be
Just another ugly thing
And bigotry could be
Seen only as obscene
And the ones that run this land
Will help the poor and common man
This is our country
From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country
Hoped you enjoyed it.
Thanks, Xicanopwr – good job.
It’s almost laughable how the profiteers will co-opt the work of other people to sell their junk, without being aware what a perversion of the original spirit it is.
Scary isn’t? It is funny how certain images can overtake the song without anybody actually listening to the words.
Freakin’ excellent, XicanoPwr. That Chevy commercial really stuck in my craw as well. It’s a great song and I was disappointed in Melloncamp for allowing Chevy to hijack it to sell a few gas guzzlers.
Great diary.
According to a recent NY Times article, Mellencamp said he was sold out by the record company and that is why he sold the song to Chevy.
Basically, he feared his fans would have been seen as a relic of the past.
Sort of the same fear the Dems have on us, they don’t trust us to save them on election day. Isn’t that the reason the impeachment process is not going forward. Sure the say, they don’t want the swing vote to view them as radical, bit IMO, it’s code for, I have no faith in the base to bail me out or help sway the fence riders. So why gamble.
The irony of it all, in the end, the very people they are trying to win over – turn on them.
As that wonderfully soulful woman one wrote, “Baby, it’s like playing a piano. It just don’t sound right unless you play the black keys with the white keys!” Amen.
Thank you!!! 🙂
It seemed that the song had another purpose than being a flag waving song, like Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
Which all goes to show that John Mellencamp is more complicated and more socially aware than your average conservative cowboy complete with black hat singer!
I really bad for him, I know what he was trying to do, I think Chevy’s overplaying the commercial did that song in. It really is a great song, the last verse, which I did not put into that vid, is very powerful. The question thou, how many people are actually going to buy the single to find out?
Thanks ese, it means a lot.
I went over to the John Mellencamp site to see what the original version of the video was, its pretty good. Not as explicit at yours but pretty good.
I haven’t seen the Chevy truck commercial, having sworn off tv last Sept. I’m glad your version is the one I got to see. To the corporations, nothing is sacred.
Now you’ve done it….sigh (fwiw…this is not a comment, and I’m not blogging. h/t to BostonJoe)
Come on dude, while I appreciate that you’re humble and all, this video and momentous occasion deserve full recognition. Yes, even beyond being FP’d.
As in…drum roll, please…how ’bout a link to your blog to celebrate your one year anniversary. (And let this be a very harsh lesson to never make me come out to comment again!)
¡Para Justicia y Libertad! http://www.xicanopwr.com
(oops, what I meant to say was, “great vid, and ¡Felicitaciones!”)
I think I get myself a PR person, you for hire.
(pssst…I think a qualified PR person would have provided an “active” link to your site, and would have been able to share the comment during an hour where more people would see it. That was just a little freelance work, albeit poorly executed) :^)
I never saw the original commercial, so I appreciated your link to the Slate article. Saw some interesting comments over there, which made me think about things from a different perspective. One comment in particular mentioned that people in Michigan need this type of ad, because their economy is the equivalent to their own personal Katrina.
I consider it reprehensible to use such historical events and figures to push people’s emotions into purchasing a big ol’ Chevy truck – ya know, our personal “fortress on wheels” that we’re supposed to run out and buy after listening to all the scare tactics we’re being fed (even though there are “little” things to consider, like cough gas prices jumping 20 cents a gallon in one swoop the other day). That’s why I don’t watch commercial TV unless I can tape shows and fast forward through all that crap. Heck, we should be giving Chevy a big round of applause for altering the original ad, which contained a graphic of a mushroom cloud…(/snark)
Here’s what I don’t understand, so please bear with me. While realizing that record contracts can be despicable … isn’t there a difference between Mellencamp’s record label using his song, as opposed to his appearance in that ad? (I really don’t know)
good day!
-a