We flipped the finger to the King of England
Then stole our country from the Indians
With God on our side and guns in our hands
We took it for our own

Built a nation dedicated to liberty,
Justice, and equality
Does it look that way to you? It doesn’t look that way to me
It’s the sickest joke I know

Listen up, man, I'll tell you who I am
I'm just another stupid American
But you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to understand
Just finish up your drink and go home.

I come from the land of Ben Franklin,
Twain and Poe and Walt Whitman.
Otis Redding, Ellington,
The country that I love…

But it’s the land of the slaves, and the Klu Klux Klan,
The Haymarket Riot, and the Great Depression
Joe McCarthy, Viet Nam
It’s the sickest joke I know

Listen up, man, I'll tell you who I am
I'm just another stupid American
But you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to understand
Just finish up your drink and go home

I'm proud and ashamed, every 4th of July
You’ve got to know the truth before you say that you’ve got pride
Now the cops got tanks ‘cause the kids got guns
Shrinks pushing pills on everyone
Cancer from the ocean, cancer from the sun
Straight to Hell we go

Listen up, man, I'll tell you who I am
I'm just another stupid American
But you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to understand
Just finish up your drink and go home

Listen up, man, I'll tell you who I am
I'm just another stupid American
But you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to understand
Just finish up your drink
And go home




Lyrics submitted by UN5ANE

'Merican song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

21 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +1
    General Comment

    my favorite song of the new record. no real deep meaning here, but the lyrics are put together so well, these fuckers should be history teachers.

    MizunoPunkon April 17, 2004   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines: "Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet" So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other: "I had all and then most of you" Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart "Some and now none of you" Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship. This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Album art
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Album art
When We Were Young
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Album art
No Surprises
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Album art
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.