You end up like a dog that's been beat too much (Jack Bog's Blog)

We missed the U.S.-Spain basketball game in the Olympics the other night -- too busy getting re-acclimated to moldy Portland after our summer trip to the east coast. It sounds as though we missed a heckuva game.

It's gratifying that some of the best players from the American pro league showed up this time around for the Olympics and took the gold. For a while there, ingrates like Shaq were making a big deal about how they wouldn't represent our country in the Games -- too much risk of injury, and therefore of losing some of the megabucks that they were so busy making. "Dead Presidents, bling bling, cut the check, it's a business," blah blah blah. We should all think just a little more highly of the stars who made the trip to Beijing in the red, white, and blue uniforms.

An interesting aspect of the finals victory was that the sonic backdrop for the American celebration that took place on the court after the last buzzer sounded was a blast of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." Here it is 25 years after it was written, and people still don't get what that song is about.

The lyrics are here.

It is not a celebration of America -- indeed, it's pretty much the opposite.

Most likely, the playing of this track as the game ended was just the result of the music-chooser's lack of attentiveness to Springsteen's message. Reagan tried playing this recording as a campaign anthem for a while, until its author pointed out how ludicrous that was and asked him to stop.

Wouldn't it be something if in this case it wasn't shallowness, but rather a knowing statement about our country by our Asian hosts?

Comments (8)

Jack,
Sounds like the song sums up what you think of America. Jack you can't be that shallow can you?

Posted by zanzen | August 25, 2008 10:22 PM

I see that the promise of the Democratic convention is bringing out the a**hat contingent. What a sad group.

Posted by Jack Bog | August 25, 2008 10:27 PM

In this case, I would defer to Thurber's “Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance”. It was the Chinese who played Michigan State University's fight song when welcoming Gerald Ford back after Nixon's famous visit.

It also wouldn't be the first time a songwriter hid more subversive lyrics in the less-remembered stanzas of songs that they realized might be sung as patriotic songs.

Posted by john rettig | August 25, 2008 11:57 PM

There are no stanzas in the song that are not utterly downtrodden. Nothing is hidden.

Posted by Jack Bog | August 26, 2008 12:19 AM

Jack,

I wasn't being sarcastic: the DHS black helos really were doing touch and go landings on downtown towers last night, performing "joint exercises" with PPB.

Without any of the advance warning that was provided for the Topoff exercise.

I was surprised you didn't blog about it.

Posted by Mister Tee | August 26, 2008 6:36 AM

To try and take some of the politics out of this post:

I was surprised that most of the music clips between points for the beach volleyball matches seemed to be US popular music. Doesn't any other country produce popular music? I liked the parts of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies that seemed to be using Chinese music.

Posted by John Fairplay | August 26, 2008 7:28 AM

Jack, It's refreshing to see your willingness to give feedback to some of the more stupid comments. Most blogmeisters seem to be passive on this score. As long as you stay on point and away from personal abuse--which you do--they're fair game.

Posted by donwolfe | August 26, 2008 7:34 AM

2 more misunderstood songs to add to your list:
Every Breath You Take
The One I Love by REM

bonus points for these 2 because they're "love" songs

Posted by jason | August 26, 2008 2:51 PM

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Monday, August 25, 2008

You end up like a dog that's been beat too much

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