American Woman

So, after dinner tonight, we head over to a local Folkestone pub.  Yay!

There is a couple getting ready to perform with a guitar and a fiddle.  I'm psyched.  I love me some fiddle. 

We wait around for a bit until they start.  I'm excited and expecting some great foot tapping pub music. 

They start up, we listen attentively and applaud appropriately.  

About song #4 they make a comment... "blah, blah, blah, I'm sure there isn't anyone in the crowd from the States, blah, blah, blah". 

Proud to be the American that I am, I holler "Whoop!!  Texas!!!"  They look at me awkwardly and break out into the following song.  

Oh GI Joe put your gun away
The sun is setting on another day
Why don't you leave us alone?
Yankee go home!

They're burning effigies out in the street
Man the life boats, sound the retreat
Pentagon's on the 'phone
Yankee go home!

You can't just kiss and run away
There ain't enough money on a sergeant's pay
When the dancehall girl you banged's in the family way

Oh you turned my sister into a whore
With a pair of silk stockings from the PX store
Why don't you leave us alone?
Yankee go home! Yankee go home! Just go home!

My girlfriend still won't talk to me
Since she met with a sailor from the land of the free
I'm tired of being alone
Yankee go home!

I lost count of the chewing gum that I've had
And coca-cola make my teeth go bad
We'll handle this on our own
Yankee go home!

Dow Jones going into a stall
Spray paint saying it on every wall
The climb was fine, now it's time to decline and fall

Over-paid, over-sexed and over here
Get smart, gringo, disappear
The Hun's at the gates of Rome
Yankee go home! Yankee go home! Go home!
Go home! Go home!

Seriously?  

It's a horrid, little anti-American ditty.  And not just anti-American, but anti-American military.  I must say, I'm just a little shocked.  My daddy was in the US Air Force for thirty years.  

I grew up on U.S. military bases.  And I can't hear the National Anthem without my eyes welling up with tears.   I could not be more proud to be an American. 

That has nothing to do with any other nationality.  I don't think I'm better than anyone else.  I am simply and desperately proud to be from America.  Always.  

And I don't  think you would ever go to a bar in the US and hear "Cute English guys with your adorable accents, go back to where you came from. "

I realize, it's a war song and in reaction to something that happened years ago.  But, I must say, I'm a little perplexed tonight.  How do I respond to this?

I thought the US and the UK were buddies?  Call me naive.  

 

Am I being sensitive?  If the song was anti-anybody else, would I feel the same?  Or if it was anti-anybody else, would it be acceptable to play on a Thursday night in a pub?  

I'm sure I'm learning a big lesson here, I'm  just not sure what it is.  

But... God bless America.

xoxo

Selena