State of the Nation

Two sets of lyrics that match my current mood about the world...
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Heard this song the other day and the theme struck me as being very appropriate for the times.  I don't recognize this country much anymore and I'm beginning to feel like an outsider, in a nation where people seem to yearn to be oppressed and controlled. 
I don't endorse everything Chris Knight sings, but he is a simple man with a talent for songwriting:

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I used to run from the past, but the world got to spinning so fast,
I run from the future now.


I run as fast as I can, trying to be a simple man,
I just want to slow down.


Well laugh if you want to, call me a backward fool,
but I ain't takin this ride.

Ya'll just go on ahead and go, let me out by the side of the road,
all I wanna do is go on home.


I don't go online, I dont watch tv, cause I know all I'm gonna see
is something stupid goin on.


Stupid's in the water these days, they're gonna drink it any way,
'til they don't know right from wrong.


Yeah, laugh if you want to, call me a backward fool,
but I aint takin this ride.

Ya'll just go on ahead and go, let me out by the side of the road,
all I wanna do is go on home.


Yeah all I wanna do is go on home.

© Chris Knight, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

A song by Tim O'Brien describing the rugged individualists who took dominion over this land and made it their own.  He's a native West Virginian and so he uses the state motto to describe the long and treacherous journey that many made to come to a land of freedom.  How long ago this now seems:

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I'm one of the few, I'm proud to be standing,

I walked up the pier from the coffin ships' landing.

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My clothes were just rags, no use in this weather;

but my back was strong, my hands tough as leather.

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I climbed up these hills till I came to the spot where I stand;

I cleared these fields and I pulled up the stumps with my hands.

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No more a wanderer, no more a refugee; a mountaineer is always free.

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Took a Cherokee bride, she gave me five babies,

and I sang at the wakes, I cried at the weddings.

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I taught all my children the songs of my youth,

to dance to the fiddle and practice the truth.

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I carried them up on my shoulders to where they could see,

the whole world before them, just so they would know what it means.

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No more a wanderer, no more a refugee, a mountaineer is always free.

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No kings and no landlords to treat us like beggars and thieves.

There's no one but God here to fear or to look down on me.

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No more a wanderer, no more a refugee. A mountaineer is always free.

.© Tim O'Brien/Universal Music Publishing Group

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