what year did the song proud to be an american come out
It'due south been nearly forty years since Lee Greenwood wrote his signature "God Bless The U.Due south.A." — a patriotic anthem informed by his veteran father, his experiences traveling across the country in a tour bus, and 1 of Elvis Presley's belatedly-period classics, amongst a lifetime of other experiences.
In a conversation with Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International, Greenwood traced the four-decade path to "God Bless," and the journeying the song has taken in the decades since.
Bart Herbison: There's a pocket-sized scattering of songs that I characterize as perfect songs, Lee. Have us dorsum to that day. What inspired you for this? Yous know it may be one of the most recognizable songs, globally, always written.
Lee Greenwood: I was raised on a farm in Sacramento, California. My parents were divorced when I was a year old, then my grandparents were my guardians. My male parent joined the Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, then you can run across I was born virtually a year afterward. My mom had to piece of work several jobs in society to support me and my sister, so she really couldn't afford to take childcare while she was working so that'southward why I was raised by my grandparents, Thomas and Edna Jackson, who I love dearly.
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I had farm chores, I had music. My mother was a piano histrion in the '40s. Nosotros had a footling Spinet piano in the corner of our trailer. I was allowed to play every evening if I wanted to and information technology was just something I could not tear myself away from. I listened to all kinds of music growing up. I played for The American Legion, The VFW, and marching in parades. I was immersed in all kinds of music. I learned more than the piano while I was in junior high and high school, and by the time I graduated in 1960, I had formed my own band and left for Nevada. During those early years – because I was the drum major in the high schoolhouse marching ring – I really enjoyed the marches of Sousa and many of the other composers and leading my ain band in The National Anthem. And then (I was) working for the USO when I was 15 and sixteen at McClellan and major Air Strength bases in Sacramento…I got a good taste of the military and their sacrifice.
…I spent 20 years in Nevada writing music, playing for revues of all kinds, even dealing cards in the casinos where I learned the psychology of people nether pressure, gambling, and drinking at the same time…So, there was a lot of input at that time, and there was something within me that said, "Someday I'd similar to write a song like ('An American Trilogy') that Elvis sings." Nosotros were working in the same hotel several times and I listened to the vocal. It was inspiring. Of class, I learned a lot of the (patriotic) songs when I was learning my music in high school. I just said, "If I ever go to Nashville, and I think that's probably where I volition stop upwardly considering L.A. chewed me up and spit me out, I'll write a song kind of like the trilogy."
Well, it took me almost 3 years subsequently I got to Nashville every bit a touring artist, and at that place wasn't any interest in releasing "God Bless the UsaA" every bit a single tape. If you lot were pursuing a career, information technology was romantic dear songs, ballads that actually hit the public right in the heart. When I toured with and so many different acts, I got inspired once more to write the vocal that would somewhen become America's almost recognized anthem.
I did it on my bus one night in '83. I already had iv albums I call up, two albums a year at the time. …That item year, we already had an album song chosen, "You've Got a Good Love Comin'," the title of the anthology that year for release for 1984. When Universal made the call afterward they heard "U.S.A." on that anthology to release it equally a single, I was only surprised. I think that if that had not happened, no one would have e'er heard the song, and information technology probably would have just been one of those things in my discography that I was proud of, simply information technology was more than that. When it got on the radio, the audience heard it, it became the song for the National Baby-sit of Tennessee, and and so the military, and then with President Reagan and his '84 campaign, which I was office of, then moved forward to Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf War – not in that order – and the (September 11) attack on America. Each fourth dimension, more than Americans plant "God Anoint the U.s.a.A" to exist a song of spirit and unity. It didn't happen overnight.
…I'm a bourgeois Christian, and fifty-fifty though most people recognize the song who may not be Christian, or just don't know how to sing the whole song (remember) "I'm Proud to Be an American" is the championship. I'll become with that, and as far equally on the canvas music MCA has listed, after pressure for many years, "God Bless the U.South.A." (with the) subtitle "I'1000 Proud to Exist an American."
I'thou O.Grand. with that. The reason I wrote that line was not just considering my begetter served in World State of war II, and survived it by the mode, but I hadn't heard for many, many years that people were proud of their heritage. My heritage is American. Sure, I'm German, English, Irish, Scottish, simply I was born in the United states of america and this is my heritage, American…And then, when I said "I'm proud to be an American where at to the lowest degree I know I'm complimentary," I know that resonated with every American who has lost a son or daughter in conflict gainsay, and maybe only the strife of how we exist here in America. In that location'due south no other country like this that'south complimentary similar nosotros are.
Well-nigh the series
In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the "Story Behind the Song" video interview serial features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing 1 of their compositions. For full video interviews with all of our subjects, visit world wide web.tennessean.com/music.
Source: https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/story-behind-the-song/2021/08/27/story-behind-song-lee-greenwoods-god-bless-u-s-a/5575603001/
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