RAGGED OLD FLAG

 The first time I heard Johnny Cash sing this song I got chill bumps as my shoulders went back and my head went up in respect for our country’s flag. You can hear Johnny sing this song on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shU_eiyVRvk), but here are the lyrics for you to read along and have them warm your heart on the 4^th of July. If you are not a true patriot, it will sound like some old forgettable country song. But if you are a true patriot, it will make you prouder than ever that you are an American.

 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 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-burns the night Francis Scott Key
Sat watching it writing O say can you see
And it got a bad rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin’ at its seams.

And it almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas Flag,

But she waved on through.

She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,

And she 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.

On Flanders Field in World War I,

She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,

She turned blood red in World War II

She hung limp, and low, a time or two,

She was in Korea, Vietnam,

She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.

She waved from our ships, upon the briny foam

and now they’ve about quit wavin’ her back here at home.

In her own good land here She’s been abused

She’s been burned, dishonored, denied an’ refused,

And the government for which she stands

Is scandalized throughout the land.

And she’s getting threadbare, and she’s wearin’ thin,

But she’s in good shape, for the shape she’s in,

Cause she’s been through the fire before

And I believe she can take a whole lot more.

So, we raise her up every morning

And we bring her down slow every night,

We don’t let her touch the ground,

And we fold her up tight.

On second thought

I “do” like to brag

Cause I’m mighty proud

Of that Ragged Old Flag.

Johnny Cash