"I'm just an American boy/ raised on MTV."
Are these words you would expect to come from a song about John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban?
These are the opening words of "John Walker's Blues," a controversial song from Walker's point of view, by underground country star Steve Earle.
The song, stands in contrast to most songs that have been used or written on the events of Sept. 11 - patriotic anthems and sentimental remembrances, such as Paul McCartney's "Freedom," Neil Young's "Let's Roll" and Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)."
Such imbalance results in a thesis without an antithesis.
"John Walker's Blues," which will be out on Earle's upcoming album Jerusalem, has come under fire from conservative and mainstream groups. Steve Gill, a right-wing talk-show host in Nashville, condemned the song.
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"This puts Earle in the same category as Jane Fonda and John Walker, and all those who hate America," Gill said.
Fox News and the New York Post attacked the song with headlines like "Twisted Ballad Honors Tali-Rat", and claimed that the song "glorified" Walker and called him "Jesus-like."
"This song just may get me fuckin' deported," said Earle, as he introduced the song at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario, Canada.
The song, begins inoffensively, "I'm just an American boy," sung in a dark twang. This line affects the target audience on an empathic level.
The song continues, "and I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads/ but none of them looked like me." With this line only, Earl establishes Walker's disillusionment with American commercialism. It seems that Earle is trying to minimize the jabs at pop culture for which Walker has become an embodied symbol.
Later in that same verse, Earle acknowledges the religious motivations that led Walker to join the Taliban, "the first thing I heard that made sense was the word of Mohammed/ peace be upon him." He expertly uses this as the main lyrical motif of the song.
The second verse ends with "if I should die, I'll rise up in the sky / Just like Jesus, Peace be upon him."
Critics claim that Earle is comparing Walker to Christ with this line. But any read into the religious motif in the first verse reveals the line to simply be a fleshing out of the lyrical form. This comparison helps to draw out similarities of Mohammed and Christ as the prophet founders of their analogous religions.
The chorus in particular stands out as being both catchy and chilling.
Whereas the majority of the song is spent in a low vocal range for Earle, the line, "a Shadu la ilaha illa AllahÉ" rises out in a higher register, then falls in a melodic sequence back down to the line "There is no God but God," which is spoken or sung in the home register of the majority of the song.
This short celebratory passage stands out with both its contrast and its brevity, and encapsulates the joy of spiritual awakening.
"In a big way this is the most pro-American record I've ever made," said Earle, of his controversial record on his Web site at www. artemisrecords.com. "In fact I feel urgently American."
The full lyrics and an MP3 version of the song are available at http://www.artemisrecords.com/ecards/earle/index.html.
Steve Earle's album Jerusalem will be released Sept. 24.
