Stardog Champion

Patriotic?? An anthem?? Are you kidding me? He is obviously showing disdain for his father that was in the military. His negative feelings towards his father show up as a common theme in quite a few of his songs. You think "a war time hero/the kind that money buys" is him being patriotic? He's practically spitting on his dad's grave with that comment.

"San Francisco where the flowers bloom in spring", I believe is a reference to the 1960's free love flower children. (His nickname in Malfunkshun was Love Child). "Fade to winter, (after the '60s) see what disease brings" Written in the 80's I believe this is about the SF AIDS epidemic. Augustino I believe to be Augustus Owsley Stanley III, and he obviously doesn't want to be like him. (Owsley was in hiding in Australia during the 80's for his LSD involvement) His father was a "wartime hero, the kind that money buys"(Vietnam?) I don't feel that as patriotic at all. Instead I feel it is thinly veiled as just the opposite. Here's an example, Exxon could buy anyone to wage war for oil. I don't feel the lyric written as patriotic at all, but just my interpretation. "It's a diamond bracelet for my mommy's memory" I believe this is another resentment against money. His mother got money for his dads war death? Hypocrisy of the flower children turning into the BMW driving yuppies? He ends again singing of the love children, the innocence lost. How they were loud and made noise, but nothing changed. "sang with Grace" Slick ? This album was recorded across the Golden Gate in Sausalito. These are all just my personal guesses, and there in lies the beauty of art. It is open to interpretation. RIP Stardog

Seems kind of patriotic., though not necessarily towards the United States.

Mother Love Bone was amazing. It sounds like a patriotic anthem, maybe to their very own "nation". who knows.

        First of all, he wrote this as a kind of joke, making fun of his disfuctional life & that how he's a "Stardog Champion", which is explaining he's just a winner for getting his life, but it was disfuctional and bad on his mind. His time on heroin majorly helped him right this song; his father was a "wartime hero, the kind that money buys". I feel his dad was a drug addict, & died with nothing, yet his mother was prolly wealthy, when she died, she only wrote him one possesion of a diamond bracelet in her will, & he was irritated, "that's all she wrote for me". He said he doesn't wanna fade away, but he feels like a stardog champion with his addiction. He also says that children used to sing of love with grace from the lord above. Meaning, they didn't use to lose their innocence as fast as modern children. His life made him an amazing writer, singer, and rocker, but it also fueled his drug addiction. Yet, this song prolly wouldn't have been written so well unless he was trippin'. RIP Andrew Wood. You will be missed. 

This song is probably about his anger at his parents, where the whole first verse is about his father and him not wanting to turn out like him, 'Half a Shadow' of his former self. The second verse is about him saying his father was in the military and he hates him for that, and that his mother only wrote him a diamond bracelet in her will. That's just me guessing though, I'm not certain what it truly means.