Uh-Merica

This song is about WWII from the POV of a soldier. Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of FDR, who declared entrance into the war after Pearl Harbor. The cobblestones and slated wooded ceilings describe the streets of war-torn Europe. The soldier clutches his rifle among rubble and cold. That gun reminds him and gives him a long for home. As for the sun, I think it has some connection to Japan. Their flag has the "Red Sun" on it.

Everyone is correct with the sense of security motif, but it's not about American civilians or Teddy Roosevelt or the right to bear arms. It's about the guns being the only protection that troops had during the war. Mrs. E. Roosevelt never got to know the troops hence the line "didn't even know I owned one."

In the second verse, the soldier is talking about memories from home, his mother's love, and the carnal love from women ("The mind has already forgotten what the body still misses").

The song is about WWII, people. Not freakin' gun control or Teddy Roosevelt. Get your presidents right.

i dunno about all of that... but when i first heard this song, specifically the beginning, i thought of Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Dead-Eye Dick" And central incident of the novel is:

On Mother's Day, 1944, just after Eleanor Roosevelt had had lunch with the Waltz family of Midland City, 12-year-old Rudy Waltz went up to the arms room and squeezed off a rifle round in the air over the near-by town and killed a pregnant housewife who was vacuuming her home eight blocks away....

it may just be coincidence, but the house they were in had a cobble stone floor and an old wooded ceiling...and if Regina was alluding to this book, then she probably was addressing some of the things in the previous posts, WWII, gun control, mother/son relationship, and how all that relates to UH-merica, etc...but also in a more complex way...i personally dont think teddy had anything to do with the song

p.s. the book is really good by the way, in case you're up for some though provoking/entertaining reading

I think it having something to do with the Roosevelts is right... I did a bit of research.

"Mrs. E. Roosevelt never heard me shoot my gun Mrs. E. Roosevelt didn't even know I owned one"

Teddy Roosevelt headed west to North Dakota to become a rancher and a lawman before Eleanor Roosevelt was born, and returned when she was still an infant. Hence, the first two lines.

"Oh we're born alone and we're covered by m-m-m-mother's kisses The mind has already forgotten what the body still misses"

He left shortly after the death of his mother and first wife, who both died on the same day, which must have hurt a lot. For a long time after he refused to even say/hear the name of his first wife, probably because it was so painful. I think Regina interpreted him going out west and picking up that entirely new lifestyle as a way for him to cope with the pain, as if it's a sort of substitute. That would also explain why the narrator seems to hold his gun and the entire sport of hunting so dearly to him.

I'm not sure about the "Somewhere between the ... floor and the ... ceiling" lines, though. My guess about the "Uh-merica" line is that it's just cleverly replacing the "A" with a "Uh" because it's a sound people make when they are shot.

alxo7o7, I think you hit the nail on the head. With the hammer. . . or rather, you hit the chamber on the butt with hammer. Like a revolver. Har har.

But I think that it's very likely that it's from the prespective of that book if not another. I recall watching this interview of Regina on ABC or one of those broadcast channels, where she said she writes mostly fiction. She also seems to be very literate. There. My two cents.

I feel like this song is about gun culture and American hubris.

"Mrs. E. Roosevelt never heard me shoot my gun Mrs. E. Roosevelt didn't even knew I owned one"

This could be a reference to the acceptedness and commonality of guns in American culture, and how we have the world's highest gun ownership rate.

"Oh, there's nothing Like Emptying a cartridge at the sun"

Trying to shoot the sun is an obviously useless endeavor, but it would be done out of arrogance, since one thinks that one has the power to put out the entire sun using just a bullet. It could also reference an overreliance on violence to solve problems which are much larger and more complex.

"Oh, we're born alone and then we're covered by m-m-m-mothers' kisses The mind has already forgotten what the body still misses Somewhere between the sticky floor and the cracks in the ceiling Cuddling my semi-automatic dash what a very fuzzy feeling"

To me, Regina is saying here that embracing gun culture/violence in general is a way of compensating for the love you were surrounded in as a child that faded as you entered the world. The world can be an incredibly confusing and unfair place, like the unsavory environment of the "sticky floor" and "cracked ceiling," and it is tempting to respond, and make ourselves feel better, by being equally callous. In other words, we've turned to our weapons to give us the "fuzzy feelings" that our "bodies still miss."

Well, if you don't count in Reginas true agenda with this audience partitipation-song (When some one fucks up the bridge by yelling Uh! too soon:"Ah, fuck it! The whole song is just an excuse to get to that part anyway -Okay- Uh-merica...") it's clearly about Americas gun policy.

UH!!

merica

merica

i'm thinking this is about teddy roosevelt and his hunting hobbies.

mrs. e. roosevelt....eleanor roosevelt

Uh-merica Uh-merica Oh, there's nothing like emptying the cartridge at the sun

second amendment, maybe?