Stick The Fucking Flag Up Your Goddam Ass, You Sonofabitch

(album: How To Clean Everything - 1993)

My father told me "son, it's futile to resist,
You can topple ideology but not the armies they enlist."
I questioned the intentions of the boy scouts chanting war.
"Well that's the sound of freedom, son" he said. (Free to say no more.)

But wait a minute dad, did you actually say freedom?
Well, if you're dumb enough to vote, you're fuckin dumb enough to believe 'em.
Cuz if this country is so goddam free,
Then I can burn your fucking flag wherever I damn well please.

And then I'm gonna stick it up your fucking ass

I carried their anthem, convinced it was mine.
Rhymeless, unreasoned conjecture kept me in line.
But then I stood back and wondered what the fuck had they done to me.
Made accomplice to all that I'd promised I would never fucking be.
Never be.

You carry their anthem, convinced that it's yours.
Invitation to honor. Invitation to war.
Bette Midler now assumes sainthood.
Romanticize murder for moral.
Tie a yellow ribbon round the oak tree my friend,
And "Gee Wally, that's swell!"
Fuck the troops to hell!