Does anyone remember with nostalgia that great '60s hit "An Open Letter To My Teenage Son"? It inspired numerous "response" records which have mercifully been forgotten, but the original remains a howling 1960s kitsch classic.

Here are the lyrics to my own attempt at a jingoistic song, though I haven't gotten around to fitting tune to them yet. But maybe they would be better just grunted:


Mammoth Bone Stomp

Leader: I know I live in the land of the free
         'cause it tells me so on my T. V.
Chorus: It tells us so on our T. V.
         so we know that we live in the land of the free.
   All: The land of the free
         on our T.V.
         is the world's great vision of felicity.

Leader: I'll turn whole countries into mud,
         since oil's a whole lot thicker than blood.
Chorus: Yes, oil's a whole lot thicker than blood,
         so we'll turn whole countries into mud.
   All: Thicker than blood!
         Turn them into mud!
         So you'd better just follow our directions, bud!

Leader: And if they don't do what we tell them to,
         we'll make them into barbecue.
Chorus: We'll make them into barbecue
         unless they do exactly what we tell them to.
   All: Barbecue:
         that'll be you,
         and your baby and your granny and your billy-goat too!

Jon Corelis
Death of a Nation: political poems