I Can't Stand Beside "Our Country"
I know the song has been out for awhile now. Practically no American who is subject to the constant barrage of subtle and not so subtle pro-war, pro-Empire, pro-Patriotism programming found on network television on a nightly basis could have missed it. If you watched the World Series you definitely saw it and heard it and if you watched the NFL playoffs you also almost certainly saw it and heard it. The reason it is on my mind again is that John Stewart interviewed Mr. Mellencamp (I use the designation Mr. more than somewhat reluctantly) on his Daily Show tonight and was his usual obsequious, spineless self. Stewart of course did not challenge the faux folk singer about cashing in on his well timed and intentionally ambiguous anthem. He only made one hardly noticeable passing reference to the Chevy commercial which uses Mellencamp's song Our Country as a way to prop up Old Glory's sagging image while simultaneously selling their new truck. Stewart failed to take Mellencamp to task for writing a song which ostensibly supports "freedom" (whatever that is) and the idea that there is "a dream for everyone" in America, but selling this alleged vision of liberation to a car manufacturer to help promote blind patriotism and war. Despite Stewart's predictable whitewash of an interview, it is Mellencamp whom I reserve my true venom for.
John Mellencamp's pathetically transparent pseudo-liberal song Our Country which he sold off to Chevy (probably for something in the range of 5-10 million; of course the royalties for airplay will push the total much higher) to help them cash in on their new "Silverado" by playing on the most base emotions and desires of unsuspecting middle-Americans is the worst example of manipulative and misleading advertising. The song opens with the couplet ;
Well I can stand beside
Ideals I think are right
And I can stand beside
The idea to stand and fight
What strikes one first in the opening salvo of the song? Most obviously, the payoff line plays on the Bush/neo-con/Republican rallying cry to not back down in the War on Terror and to "stand and fight" as opposed to "cutting and running" which they ceaselessly tell us the Democrats are espousing. If Mellencamp didn't intend this stanza to be used as a pro Iraq war message (the framing of these lyrics in the add with images of helicopters landing in Vietnamese rice paddies seems to be clearly supporting the American war machine -- it is not soldiers that are shown in the add, but helicopters and military hardware -- it thus functions as promo for the military industrial complex) then he should not have sold the song. A conscientious and responsible artist would want to know how the song he was selling would be used, for what purpose and if he or she had a shred of integrity would not have agreed to such a blatantly exploitive situation.
What makes this add particularly galling is that there are also images of Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali preceding the helicopter shot. This juxtaposition seems to be intended to confuse the average viewer, legitimizing war by identifying it with a great champion boxer who sacrificed his title and livelihood for the cause of peace not war, and an inspired woman who refused to back down to racism, injustice and inequality. It is as if Chevy, and Mellencamp by proxy, are saying that if you continue to support the war in Iraq (and buy the Chevy "Silverado") that you will be heroic like Ali and Rosa Parks. The Mellencamp/Chevy tag-team are perverting and turning upside down the message of these two courageous Americans for their own self-aggrandizement and profit.
What makes Mellencamp's part in this so despicable is that he is operating under the guise of promoting core American values such as equality and freedom. Chevy is in the business of selling cars and trucks and really don't pretend to be fighters for social reform or justice. Yes, they do consciously attempt to pluck the collective hearstrings of middle-Americans, but it is clear what their objective is. That is not the case with Mellencamp however. He plays the role of revolutionary and uses the rebel mythos of James Dean and Woody Guthrie to cash in and balloon his musical persona and pocketbook. If Dean were alive he would turn away from his TV in disgust, while Guthrie would probably turn the outrageous manipulation into a song filled with poignancy, humor and angry defiance. Mellencamp's use of the title Our Country is clearly intended to stir recollections of Woody's classic This Land is Your Land. He even further abuses the memory of Guthrie by transforming Woody's poetic lines about our waving wheatfields, redwood forests, gulf-stream waters and diamond deserts into his own simplistic version;
From the West Coast
To the East Coast
Down the gypsy highway back home,
This is Our Country.
In the end, all Mellencamp will achieve is a larger bank account and perhaps a temporary rekindling of his past fame. John Mellencamp will never be Woody Guthrie and I don't believe his music will be cherished or remembered well after he's gone, no matter how many copies of his new album he sells, or how many sold out crowds he plays to during his tour. Marketing genius, advertising dollars and self-promotion can sell records and fill arenas. They cannot however touch people's hearts or change people's lives. And this is something Mellencamp will never understand.
