Songoftheday 1/6/23 - If tomorrow all the things were gone I worked for all my life, and I had to start again with just my children and my wife...

 

 

"God Bless The USA" - Lee Greenwood

from the albums (original) You've Got A Good Love Comin' (1984) and (re-recording) God Bless The USA: The Best Of Lee Greenwood (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter Lee Greenwood, who grew up Melvin Lee Greenwood in California, before starting a music career hopping the casino circuit in Vegas in the 1960s. Greenwood didn't get much notice until the end of the 1970's, and was signed to MCA Records at the beginning of the next decade. His debut single, the breakup ballad "It Turns Me Inside Out", peaked at #17 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart at the start of 1982. His follow-up, "Ring On Her Finger, Time On Her Hands", released as his debut album Inside Out came out, did even better, climbing to #5 on the Country Singles chart, and hitting #2 on the Canadian Country list. (It was done much better by Reba McEntire a decade later.) The Inside Out album went to #12 on the Billboard Country Albums sales tally, going on to spend over two years (107 weeks) on the chart and selling over a half million copies.

 

A year later, Greenwood released his sophomore effort, Somebody's Gonna Love You. The lead single from the record was the soft-rock style love ballad "I.O.U.". The song made it to #6 on the Country Singles chart, but became a big crossover success, making a splash on "easy listening" pop stations and climbing to #4 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart in 1983, and even reaching the main pop Hot 100 at #53.  Now, in the 1990's and after, such pop success would alienate country music radio and fans, but back in the days of Eddie Rabbitt and Kenny Rogers, the only thing is it was surprising it didn't do better. In fact, his next two singles from the album, the mid-tempo title track "Somebody's Gonna Love You" and the heartbreak ballad "Going, Going, Gone" both topped the Country Singles chart, with the former also climbing to #15 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart and popping on to the Hot 100 at #96, and the latter becoming a #1 country hit in Canada. The Somebody's Gonna Love You album was his first top ten country album at #3, while making his debut on the main Billboard 200 sales tally at #73. At the Grammy Awards in 1984, "I.O.U." won the trophy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

In 1984, Lee returned with his third album You've Got A Good Love Comin'. For the first single, the ultra-jingoistic "God Bless The U.S.A." was released. It was the height of the "Reagan era", and the market for "patriotic" fare for the lower-class plebes that just want to ignore the industry leaving their towns because they just love to buy the shit from the Wal-Mart on the cheap. Anyhoo, the song is typical of a workshopped piece of music from a guy who never served in the military a day in his life but wants to proclaim that he would, goddammit! Produced by Jerry Crutchfield, the record is full of melodic flourish, and Greenwood's gruff voice is in good form, but the lyrics are TV-ad quality, name-checking states and cities like a marketing program. The music video is even worse, casting Greenwood as a small-town farmer who loses his farm and in the end seemingly heads off to a music career? Well, first of all, I don't know any farmer driving a tractor in a Members-Only style jacket - does anyone think to hire someone to do appropriate costuming? Second, there's obviously no mention at all on the corporate policies of the Reagan Administration and consolidating of the agriculture business that would lead to his losing the farm. It's just the fault of "the bad people", which will be fine-tuned to mean "the Demon-rats" in the decades to come. 

 

 

At least this time out, the song seemed to be done in earnest, and was moderately well-received. It didn't top the country chart, but did make it to #7, while getting some airplay again on the easy listening stations, hitting #26 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart in the early summer of 1984. The You've Got A Good Love Comin' album, released in May of that year, got to #150 on the Billboard 200, and #6 on the Country Albums list, landing his third consecutive "gold" album, selling over a half million copies. At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Lee was nominated again for Best Male Country Vocal, losing to Merle Haggard for his "That's The Way Love Goes", while the song was up for Best Country Song, which went to Steve Goodman for "City Of New Orleans" recorded by Willie Nelson that previous year. 

The second release from the album, "Fool's Gold", went back to his heartbreak wheelhouse, and spent a week at #3 on the country chart, followed by the more upbeat "You've Got A Good Love Comin'", which went to #9 on the list. However neither made any mark on mainstream pop radio the way "God Bless" and "I.O.U." did.

Also that year, Greenwood released a "duets" album with Barbara Mandrell, who was a big name in Nashville and just coming off her three-year television variety show, called Meant For Each Other (mind you, Lee's been married four times but not to her). Two singles from the record hit both the country and adult contemporary radio charts, with "To Me" spending two weeks at #3 on the former and reaching #24 on the latter. That song was also nominated for a Grammy in 1985 for Best Duo/Group Country Vocal Performance, which the Judds took home for their breakthrough song "Mama He's Crazy". 

Greenwood capped off the first half of the decade with his first Greatest Hits collection on MCA, which peaked at #4 on the Country Albums chart and #163 on the Billboard 200, selling over a million copies. A new addition to the record, "Dixie Road", earned its place by scoring Lee his first #1 hit on the Country Singles chart in 1985. Even though the presence of country music on mainstream pop radio had pretty much faded away by then, that momentum helped set up his 1985 studio album Streamline for country stations. All three of the singles from the record, "I Don't Mind The Thorns (If You're The Rose)", "Don't Underestimate My Love For You", and "Hearts Aren't Made To Break (They're Made To Love)" (oh man, the long titles), topped the Billboard Country Songs list. Although the Streamline album failed to make the Billboard 200, the set spent a week at #1 on the Country Albums list, his sole record to make that mark (I smell shenanigans why it wasn't on the former). "I Don't Mind The Thorns" was nominated for the Best Male Country Vocal Grammy for the third consecutive time, losing to Ronnie Milsap for his retro pop "Lost In The Fifties (Tonight)". 

After a holiday release, Greenwood's seventh studio album, Love Will Find Its Way To You, went to #9 on the Country Albums chart in 1986, but it would be his last (so far) top ten entry. The same went for the second single from the record, "Morning Ride", which topped the Country Songs chart for a week, but it would be his last. Like many other "cosmopolitan" country hitmakers of the early 80's, country radio was "aging" him off as the new troop of traditionalists like Randy Travis, the Judds, and Dwight Yoakam were taking over. After his last album of the decade, 1989's If Only For One Night, didn't make the Country Albums top-40 (#66) and it's singles missed the Country Songs top-40, Greenwood left MCA Records. 

Lee started out the 1990's on Capitol Records, and like most decent-size artist moves he started out strong, with 1990's "Holdin' A Good Hand" from the album of the same name coming so close to the country radio top at #2 for a week. His second disc on the label, A Perfect 10, was an album of ten duets with female singers. One of those, "Hopelessly Yours" with the infinitely more talented Suzy Bogguss, hit #12 on the Country Songs chart (his last "original" top-40 hit there) and was nominated for Best Country Collaboration at the 1992 Grammys, which went to fiddle player Mark O'Connor's "Nashville Cats" of Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, and Steve Wariner on "Restless". 

But like at MCA, Nashville again grew cold on Lee, with his next two albums on Capitol and its subsidiary Liberty Records not making the country albums chart nor having at least a top-40 country radio hit. The "Desert Storm" war in Iraq did revive interest in "God Bless The USA", which he re-recorded for a blatant cash grab album of "patriotic" material for the American Patriot album (which inexplicably included the Confederate anthem "Dixie"). This version was even more cheesy, and so synth heavy it can induce slumber...

Greenwood spent the next few year drifting from small indie label to small indie label, releasing five albums on as many labels between 1995 and the summer of 2001.

Then came 9/11.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the failed one meant for the Capitol that crashed in Pennsylvania, united the country in sorrow, fear, then anger (the anger always wins out). Radio stations altered their playlists to remove anything with even a hint of a construed meaning, from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to Peter Paul and Mary's "Leavin' On A Jet Plane". On the other hand, certain songs started to get played even including snippets of news, most notably Enya's "Only Time". But before certain artists started to roll out the 9/11-inspired songs, mostly country (we'll be getting to those), stations mined the 80s and grabbed "God Bless The U.S.A.". At that time, Curb Records,like they did with the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody" during the Ghost phenomenon and the Four Seasons' "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" from its radio revival, reissued a CD single of Greenwood's re-recorded version of the song from a 1996 collection. With that "new" release, and the sales thereof of people who just wanted the song no matter what, "God Bless The USA" rocketed on to the Hot 100 by the end of September, giving Lee the top-40 hit he missed out on in the early 80s. Of course, this version is just as synthetic as the American Patriot version (as most re-records are), and is wiped of any nuance...

The 2001 version of "God Bless The USA" hit the top-20 on Billboard's Hot 100 in September of 2001. On the radio, the song made #14 on their "Radio Songs" airplay chart, #12 on the Adult Contemporary format, and #16 on the Country Airplay list. The single would be certified "Platinum", selling over a million copies.

Later that year, Greenwood's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas album on the indie Country Crossing label appeared on the Country Albums chart top-40 at #35. However two further studio albums on Curb failed to attract any interest at all. Since then, he's continuously been releasing albums that are either Christmas themed or riding the jingoistic schtick that "God Bless The USA" ushered in. He was appointed to the National Council On The Arts by President Bush in 2008. Those positions are for six-year stints, but when President Obama went to appoint the Grammy-winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate blocked any action, leaving Greenwood there through the traitor president's term. When President Biden finally was able to appoint director Kamilah Forbes to the board, finally replacing Greenwood, he had a hissy fit. So fuck that guy. It's only fitting that he's chained his horse to the fraud from New Yawk City that has also never served a day in his life, branding this song to the fascist's rallies. 

I plan my Song of the Day weeks, sometimes months in advance, and it has strictly been chronologically on the debut week in the top-40 of Billboard's Hot 100 since I started ten years ago with 1982. It's a crazy coincidence that this song with this connotation placed itself on January 6th, the day that an insurrection of the fraud's followers attempted to overturn a election and topple a government. I will never forgive them for that, and await 80-year-old Greenwood's appointment in hell. But the irony is mindblowing.

Original: (2/10)          1996/2001 CD Single Remake: (1/10)

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In 2003, American Idol had its second-season finalists (the Ruben Studdard/Clay Aiken season) cover "God Bless The U.S.A." for a single benefiting the American Red Cross. The result hit #4 on the Hot 100, and of course will be a future SOTD...

Up on Monday: R&B newcomer spans the hours.