Wave That Flag: Music for The Fourth

[As I prepare for our annual trip to the Mister's folks down in Pueblo for the Fourth (actually waiting for the rest of the family to wake up!), I'm reprising a diary from July 4, 2006.]

In the United States, the term "patriotic music" generally is used to mean the marches of John Phillip Sousa; the National Anthem; God Bless America, I'm Proud To Be An American; and the like.

But I'm of a different bent — I find the above evoke images of martialism and mindless nationalism which are the antithesis to ideals of the United States — our true patrimony.

After the flip is my favorite song about the United States.  What's yours?

My last name is Franklin; my Dad claims the family is of direct-line descent from Benjamin Franklin (but he's yet to provide me with the family tree he swears his cousin has).  In any event, that partly informs my selection of my favorite patriot song: Franklin's Tower, lyrics by Robert Hunter, Music by Jerry Garcia

In another time's forgotten space
your eyes looked through your mother's face
Wildflower seed on the sand and stone
may the four winds blow you safely home

Roll away ... the dew
Roll away... the dew
Roll away... the dew
Roll away... the dew

You ask me where the four winds dwell
In Franklin's tower there hangs a bell
It can ring, turn night to day
Ring like fire when you lose your way

Roll away... the dew . . .

God help the child who rings that bell
It may have one good ring left, you can't tell
One watch by night, one watch by day
If you get confused just listen to the music play

Roll away... the dew . . .

Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
if you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind

Roll away... the dew . . .

In Franklin's Tower the four winds sleep
Like four lean hounds the lighthouse keep
Wildflower seed in the sand and wind
May the four winds blow you home again

Roll away... the dew
Roll away... the dew
Roll away... the dew
Roll away... the dew
You better roll away the dew

I very much admire the lyrics of Robert Hunter; in most cases he leaves us to our own interpretation of their meaning, but in the case of Franklin's Tower, he responded to an essay making claims about the meaning (or non-meaning) of his lyrics by providing a exegesis of the song: Fractures of Unfamiliarity & Circumvention in Pursuit of a Nice Time.  "Franklin's Tower" is Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which houses the Liberty Bell.  For the verse

God help the child who rings that bell
It may have one good ring left, you can't tell
One watch by night, one watch by day
If you get confused just listen to the music play

Hunter writes in explanation:

The Bell, rung once, cracked and could not be safely rung again. From an actual bell, it therefore became a symbol of the potential to ring. The single toll, signaling birth, can now be heard only in its reverberations in our history and ideals.  Some have had to bear those ideals in difficult circumstances (war, the Great Depression and general benightedness) others have had the more enviable task of keeping watch eternal vigilance) during periods of conscious and dynamic change: the full light of day. The Sixties, the writer assumes, were such a time.

You can't tell if ringing that bell a second time would destroy it in the act of producing another mighty peal and it might be foolish, if outrageous, to try. Perhaps the "music" of the original ideals symbolized by the first and only toll should be taken to heart and implemented, rather than obviated by a new source of ideation (communism, anarchy, religion based governmental apparatus. etc.) To resolve this confusion, pay attention to the original inspiration (the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, collectively).

Individually, maintain awareness of conscience and one's own early ideals.

Fine ideals to reiterate on the Fourth.  And my own favorite verse

Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
if you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind

Really needs no explanation.

[BTW, one of my favorite rendition of Franklin's Tower is available for download here, Giant's Stadium, July 10, 1989.  Also has a killer Iko Iko.  Another very good, but different, version is on One from the Vault]

So, what's your favorite song for the Fourth?