These are the lyrics as I heard them, prior to reading the written text. Text with / slashes indicates a word with another word sung simultaneously with distortion.
This is how you hold your American flag 2x
So this is how you hold your patr(/fucking/)iotic flag.
We/You're all a bunch of fucking/public disgraces.
There sits an old/no man he's waving and typing and playing his sax to the law. I see him through the window-sill.
There you are laughing and joking and waving and praying for life to be free. And I know that you mean him well.
Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yells. Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yearns.2x
There she lies bleeding and crying and wasting life on a bed that she has only made. And I know that she'd have done him well. Stands up in anger and walks to the doorway where he can you clearly hear me. And I'm not sure I know what he means.
Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yells. Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man dies.
can't make out spoken words from 3:03 to 3:17; heavily distorted, may be (partly?) backwards (notice the 'lisp' sounds common to reversed speech)
This's how you hold your American- American Flag. This's how you hold your American People People's Flag. This is how you hold your American American Flag. This is how you hold your American American People People's Flag.
As the old man dies (losing track of days)
As the old man dies (staring to the sky)
As the old man dies (losing to the days)
As the old man dies...
I'll concede 'where he can you clearly hear me' and 'playing his sax to the law'- I thought the latter was a Bill Clinton reference, but repeat listening sounds more like overstressed sibilants, which the singer does a lot. In all other cases, I stand by my version above the official one as to the song's actual lyrics. I think 'waving' in the first segment was supposed to be 'writing', but he mis-sang and nobody noticed or nobody cared.
The song may be about the writer's grandfather or another significant elderly person, but the broad comments (the old dude 'yells' and 'writes', which are pretty standard old people things) suggest it's more about the aging troops of Vietnam in general- and, of course, our failure to do anything for them, because they're going away soon enough. The song only has a single- and very oblique, at that- anti-government reference, "paying his tax to the law." However, the disgust at the 'flag-wavers' may be targeted at people who are supposed to represent said flag.
These are the lyrics as I heard them, prior to reading the written text. Text with / slashes indicates a word with another word sung simultaneously with distortion.
This is how you hold your American flag 2x So this is how you hold your patr(/fucking/)iotic flag. We/You're all a bunch of fucking/public disgraces.
There sits an old/no man he's waving and typing and playing his sax to the law. I see him through the window-sill.
There you are laughing and joking and waving and praying for life to be free. And I know that you mean him well.
Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yells. Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yearns.2x
There she lies bleeding and crying and wasting life on a bed that she has only made. And I know that she'd have done him well. Stands up in anger and walks to the doorway where he can you clearly hear me. And I'm not sure I know what he means.
Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man yells. Losing track of days, staring to the sky as the old man dies.
can't make out spoken words from 3:03 to 3:17; heavily distorted, may be (partly?) backwards (notice the 'lisp' sounds common to reversed speech)
This's how you hold your American- American Flag. This's how you hold your American People People's Flag. This is how you hold your American American Flag. This is how you hold your American American People People's Flag.
As the old man dies (losing track of days) As the old man dies (staring to the sky) As the old man dies (losing to the days) As the old man dies...
I'll concede 'where he can you clearly hear me' and 'playing his sax to the law'- I thought the latter was a Bill Clinton reference, but repeat listening sounds more like overstressed sibilants, which the singer does a lot. In all other cases, I stand by my version above the official one as to the song's actual lyrics. I think 'waving' in the first segment was supposed to be 'writing', but he mis-sang and nobody noticed or nobody cared.
The song may be about the writer's grandfather or another significant elderly person, but the broad comments (the old dude 'yells' and 'writes', which are pretty standard old people things) suggest it's more about the aging troops of Vietnam in general- and, of course, our failure to do anything for them, because they're going away soon enough. The song only has a single- and very oblique, at that- anti-government reference, "paying his tax to the law." However, the disgust at the 'flag-wavers' may be targeted at people who are supposed to represent said flag.