America's Boy

found this on bleep.com, from Trish Keenan: The lyrics to 'America's Boy' were generated by my reactions to a tabloid cryptic crossword. The clues were topically about the war in Iraq, and in general, their stance was one of anti-American occupation. In my frustration at not being able to decipher the clues, I began to react to them, make up my own answers, mimicking back the language of the clues. I was interested then in possible answers. I got on a roll arguing with the clues, asking questions back, taking offence to them and deliberately misreading them. What came back was a sort of celebration of the American soldier. Snap shots of the heroics of American Imperialism, the all out impressiveness of its big achievements. Also something that the British do not have in their culture, a self celebratory nature of Americans towards their own country. The lyrics of Tender Buttons were generated through automatic writing. They are my free falling thoughts. I believe that words have their own life. That if you throw words together randomly, they naturally make sense. Language just wants to be understood.

Am I the only person who believes the lyrical sentiment toward America in this song is fairly ambivalent? There's really nothing here to make me believe it's supposed to be anti-American, even if that is all the rage these days. Trish is a smarter lyricist than that.

I love this song sooo much. I know that doesn't really help at all, but I just think it's such a beautiful song I had to say something.

The pretentiousness of being an American.

This song brings me joy, lol i know isnt scientific but well, Usa Autorities have a lot to think in their behavior,Broadcast is just making it catchy and lovely.

"Oy vey", what a mess the American way is?

It's not a mockery of America or Americans as a whole...It's a satire of the current Bush administration (references to cowboy corn and "America's boy" = Dubya) policy towards war(American soldier, gun and rocket references), specifically the war in Iraq (hence the references to oil).

yeah, definitely an anti-bush song. catchy!

I like how they don't seem to be bitter about anything, if it is a political statement, they sound really detatched and spacey. Love how the drum beat keeps the song along.

I guess it could be about an American boy charming some european gal or something like that. But really all i see are a bunch of loose descriptions of the USA.

The line ''you are dean and me the queen'' is the only thing that strays out of that, since America doesn't have a monarchy it's the only line that could be in reference to something outside of the USA.

Plus the line ''gun me down with yankee power''

I don't know seems like a girl who is smitten with an american boy.