If You Love America, This May Move You To Tears.

JOHNNY CASH - RAGGED OLD FLAG (words below)
From 1993 PBS Special, "A Capitol Fourth"

Very moving Johnny Cash poem about a Ragged Old Flag. It's about the American Spirit and the things the Ragged Old Flag, or America, has stood through and how it's gonna keep standing. Pretty common for a lot of folks, me included, to shed a few tears when we listen to this. It's just so beautiful. God Bless America.

Ragged Old Flag

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench an old man was sitting there
I said, your old courthouse is kinda run down
He said, naw, it'll do for our little town
I said, your old flagpole has kinda leaned a little bit
And that's a ragged old flag you got hanging on it
He said, have a seat, and I sat down
Is this the first time you've been to our little town?
I said, I think it is
He said, I don't like to brag
But we're kinda proud of that ragged old flag
You see, we got a little hole in that flag there when
Washington took it across the Delaware
And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key
Sat up watching it writing say can you see
Got a little rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin' at its seams
It almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the texas flag, but she waved on though
It got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville
Got cut again at Shiloh Hill
There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg
And the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag
In Flanders field in World War one
She took a bad hit from a Bertha gun
She turned blood red in World War Two
She hung limp and low by the time that one was through
She was in Korea, Vietnam
She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam
The Native Americans, the Blacks, Brown, Yellow, White
All shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes
And in her own good land here she’s been abused
She’s been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused
And the very government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout the land
And she's getting threadbare and she’s wearing kinda thin
But she's in good shape for the shape she's in
'Cause she's been through the fire before
And she can take a whole lot more
So we raise her up every morning
We bring her down slowly every night
We don't let her touch the ground and we fold her up right
On second thought, I guess I do like to brag
‘Cause I’m mighty proud of that Ragged Old Flag

Writer: John Cash
Ragged Old Flag lyrics © BMG Rights Management

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