OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE-  CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST COUNTRY SONGS EVER WRITTEN AND SUNG.

It is a tongue in cheek song about a town in Oklahama.

ENJOY!

 

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;

We don't take our trips on LSD

We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street;

Coz we like livin' right, and bein' free.

We don't make a party out of lovin';

But we like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo;

We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy,

Like the hippies out in San Francisco do

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,

A place where even squares can have a ball

We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,

And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all

Cowboy boots are still in style for manly footwear;

Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen.

Football's still the roughest thing on campus,

And the kids here still respect the college dean.

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,

A place where even squares can have a ball

We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,

And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all.

In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

Okie from Muskogee is an album by Merle Haggard and the Strangers, released in 1969.

The album won the Academy of Country Music award for Album of the Year in 1969. Haggard also won Single of the Year for "Okie from Muskogee" as well as Top Male Vocalist

In the 1930s in California, the term Okie was used in contempt, to refer to very poor immigrants from Oklahoma .

The "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million new displaced people; many headed to the farms in California's Central valley . The core group of Okies were descendants of Scotch Irish .

The term "Okie" was used to disparage these poor, white, migrant workers and their families. The term became well-known nationwide by John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Will Rogers, a famous movie star with Oklahoma roots remarked jokingly that the Okies moving from Oklahoma to California increased the average intelligence of both states.

 

Written by Haggard and Roy Edward Burris (drummer for Haggard's backing band, The Strangers) during the height of the Vietnam War, "Okie from Muskogee" grew from the two trading one-liners about small-town life, where conservative values were the norm and outsiders with ideals contrary to those ways were unwelcome.

Here, the singer reflects on how proud he is to hail from Middle America, where its residents were patriotic, and didn't smoke marijuana, take LSD, wear beads and sandals, burn draft cards or challenge authority.  A self-confessed 'square,' is confused by such changes and with a chuckle comes to the conclusion that he and his ilk have the right sort of life for themselves. 

By November 15, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart, where it remained for four weeks. 1970The song is played in the background in Platoon. The song is referenced in the movies An Officer and a Gentleman

The Vietnam protests were an inspiration on this song - Haggard was protesting the protesters. Haggard was imprisoned several times in his younger days for various crimes.

During a 2010 interview with The Boot, he explained: "When I was in prison, I knew what it was like to have freedom taken away. Freedom is everything. During Vietnam, there were all kinds of protests. These soldiers were giving up their freedom and lives to make sure others could stay free. I wrote the song to support those soldiers."

President Nixon wanted Johnny Cash to sing this song in White House and he refused.

Say again-- US soldiers fighting in Vietnam to keep America free?

Punch into google search THE GULF OF TONKIN LIE- VADAKAYIL

Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958),  was directly responsible for the American war in Vietnam. He used opium drug trade money power to put a Vatican puppet and staunch Roman Catholic president Ngo Dinh Diem, as president of Vietnam in 1955.

His brief was to persecute the Buddhists and convert them to Christianity. Diem was instructed to give death penalty to communists in 1956 .  In the war America supported the Catholic south . The result was 50000 American soldier causalities and 2 million Vietnamese exterminated--and the greatest rape of this planet by Agent Orange-- ordered by JFK.

Pope Pius XII along with John Foster Dulles ( secretary of state for President Eisenhower ) -- both committed anti-communists , were responsible for the start of the COLD WAR and so much human misery..

Pius XII was very much worried that the Chinese Christians would set up a separate Chinese church ( like the Serb Orthodox church ), which did NOT care for the Pope, and would warn all and sundry about this, often .

Here is a 7000 year old Vedic sanskrit chant-- grace and peace!

CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

..