Bruce’s History Lessons: Johnny Cash’s ‘Ragged Old Flag’
Arguably the least known of the great songs Johnny Cash wrote and sang is “Ragged Old Flag,” released this week (April 5) in 1974.
Cash wrote the song during the heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement when flag burning was commonplace, which angered him because he visited Vietnam where young men were dying for their country, for our freedoms and, he said, “for that flag.”
The song begins with him, a stranger in a small town, telling a man sitting on a park bench, “That’s a ragged flag you got” hanging on the flagpole in town square.
The man responds, “I don’t like to brag / But we’re kind of proud of that ragged old flag.” In Cash’s brilliantly rhyming lyrics, the man then describes the flag’s significant role in the most important events in American history.
“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 watching it, writing ‘Say Can You See.'” And later, “And she almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag / She waved on though.”
And “She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville / And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.”
And “On Flanders Field in World War One / She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun / She turned blood red in World War Two / She hung limp and low a time or two. She was in Korea, Vietnam / She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.”
And later, describing her steadfastness during turbulent times (such as the 1970s), “In her own good land she’s been abused / She’s been burned, dishonored, denied an’ refused / And she’s getting threadbare, and she’s wearin’ thin / But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in / Because she’s been through the fire before / And I believe she can take a whole lot more.”
The man concludes: “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 right.” And finally, “On second thought I do like to brag / Because I’m mighty proud of that ragged old flag.”
Once in an interview, Cash was asked if he agreed burning the American flag should be legal, and after a moment’s thought he said, “Yes. I cherish all the freedoms we have, including the [First Amendment free speech] right to burn the flag.”
He paused and added, “But I’ve also got the right to bear arms, and if you burn my flag I’ll shoot you.”
Bruce G. Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net