PPR Songs

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP-vHAwAVdg

This song went to number one and was constantly played on the radio in America which looking back from a 2024 prospective is mind blowing. If it was released today a lot of radio stations would be scared to play it, there would be campaign to not let this band into the United States. There would be your face demonstrations at their concerts, their websites would be hacked. Since the band was from Canada there would be anti Canadian sentiment expressed.

One cannot say we were more mellow then. This hit number one in May 1970 at height of internal divisions over the Vietnam War, yet I don’t recall anything more then a little bit of consternation about an anti American/anti Vietnam war protest song*.

*From Songfacts
One of the most misinterpreted songs ever, this is often heard as a patriotic ode or a tribute to American women. It's usually American listeners who arrive at the jingoistic conclusions, ignoring a very clear lyric: "American Woman, get away from me."

The Guess Who are Canadian, and Burton Cummings (the song's lyricist) insists it has nothing to do with American pride. "What was on my mind was that girls in the States seemed to get older quicker than our girls and that made them, well, dangerous," Cummings told the Toronto Star in 2014. "When I said 'American woman, stay away from me,' I really meant 'Canadian woman, I prefer you.' It was all a happy accident."

Speaking with Songfacts, Randy Bachman called "American Woman" an "antiwar protest song," explaining that when they came up with it on stage, both the band and the audience had a problem with the Vietnam War. Said Bachman: "We had been touring the States. This was the late '60s, they tried to draft us, send us to Vietnam. We were back in Canada, playing in the safety of Canada where the dance is full of draft dodgers who've all left the States."

The lines where the anti-Vietnam sentiment are most apparent are "I don't want your war machines, I don't want your ghetto scenes."

My 12 year old self certainly thought of it as an anti American song. The first time I heard about it being interpreted as a jingoistic song was when I read about in songfacts. I am befuddled, I have no clue where the jingoistic interpretation would come from. At the time it was a really good song and still is “Classic Rock” in every sense of the term.

Extended version


GenX members may be more familiar with the Lenny Kravitz cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzzWEeiUf3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOuveRlAaac

Whenever I hear this song I picture Xi Jinping leading his red armies riding on a giant Chinese dragon ready to burn down Washington D.C.

https://youtu.be/NSa1HllWGxc?si=rCml2nxIrY8aBfG4

sums it up for me

Amazing song from an overhyped show that sums up politics in a nutshell.



Also I like to picture this song playing after Trump chokes on his last cheeseburger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43gm3CJePn0

"Just do as I say, don't do as I do". Certainly describes the religious right and who they vote for all too well.

Sadly, televangelists are still a thing and so this over 30 year song feels very relevant.

In 1973 Redbone released the politically oriented "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee", recalling the massacre of Lakota Sioux Indians by the Seventh Cavalry in 1890. The song ends with the subtly altered sentence "We were all wounded 'by' Wounded Knee". The song reached the #1 chart position in Europe but did not chart in the U.S. where it was initially withheld from release and then banned by several radio stations.

where's the dick cheney, aha

This is how I picture in my head Kim Yo Jong taking absolute power as the first Female Dictator of North Korea.

https://youtu.be/RwJscjiB0Sc?si=QZjG10c5GqSxJ-MX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgoR9DsxR3Q

Songfacts