Johnny Cash performs "Ragged Old Flag"

Johnny Cash performs "Ragged Old Flag"

Ragged Old Flag is a song by American country music artist Johnny Cash.

 

Ragged Old Flag was written in 1974, during a time of political turbulence in the United States that had forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Although Cash had publicly supported Nixon's candidacy, he had started to question the wisdom of Nixon-era policies concerning the Vietnam War. He wrote Ragged Old Flag to "reaffirm faith in the country and the goodness of the American people."

 

The song tells a story of an old man in a town square describing what the flag and country have been through together.Ragged Old Flag is typical of Cash's particular style of patriotism characterized by his appreciation for the land, people and complexities of the United States.

Johnny Cash - Ragged Old Flag Lyrics 

 

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-burned the night Francis Scott Key

Sat watching it writing 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 though

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 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 and Vietnam

She went where she was sent by Uncle Sam

She waved from our ships upon the Briny foam

And now they've about quit waving her back here at home

In her own good land here she's been abused 

She's been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused

And the government for which she stands

Is scandalized throughout the land

And she's getting threadbare and wearing 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

We take her down every night

We don't let her touch the ground and we fold her up right

On second thought, I do like to brag

'Cause I'm mighty proud of that ragged old flag