Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore
© John Prine



While digesting Reader’s Digest


In the back of a dirty book store,


A plastic flag, with gum on the back,


Fell out on the floor.




Well, I picked it up and I ran outside


Slapped it on my window shield,


And if I could see old Betsy Ross


I’d tell her how good I feel.



Chorus:


But your flag decal won’t get you


Into Heaven any more.


They’re already overcrowded


From your dirty little war.




Now Jesus don’t like killin’


No matter what the reason’s for,


And your flag decal won’t get you


Into Heaven any more.





Well, I went to the bank this morning


And the cashier he said to me,


"If you join the Christmas club


We’ll give you ten of them flags for free."




Well, I didn’t mess around a bit


I took him up on what he said.


And I stuck them stickers all over my car


And one on my wife’s forehead.



Repeat Chorus:



Well, I got my window shield so filled


With flags I couldn’t see.


So, I ran the car upside a curb


And right into a tree.




By the time they got a doctor down


I was already dead.


And I’ll never understand why the man


Standing in the Pearly Gates said...



"But your flag decal won’t get you


Into Heaven any more.


We’re already overcrowded


From your dirty little war.




Now Jesus don’t like killin’


No matter what the reason’s for,


And your flag decal won’t get you


Into Heaven any more."

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign

Sitting there by the left turn line

Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze

One leg missing, both hands free

No one’s paying much mind to him

The V.A. budget’s stretched so thin

And there’s more comin’ home from the Mideast war

We can’t make it here anymore



That big ol’ building was the textile mill

It fed our kids and it paid our bills

But they turned us out and they closed the doors

We can’t make it here anymore



See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock

They’re just gonna set there till they rot

’Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack

Just busted concrete and rusted tracks

Empty storefronts around the square

There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere

You don’t come down here ’less you’re looking to score

We can’t make it here anymore



The bar’s still open but man it’s slow

The tip jar’s light and the register’s low

The bartender don’t have much to say

The regular crowd gets thinner each day



Some have maxed out all their credit cards

Some are working two jobs and living in cars

Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink

If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO

See how far 5.15 an hour will go

Take a part time job at one of your stores

Bet you can’t make it here anymore



High school girl with a bourgeois dream

Just like the pictures in the magazine

She found on the floor of the laundromat

A woman with kids can forget all that

If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do

Forget the career, forget about school

Can she live on faith? live on hope?

High on Jesus or hooked on dope

When it’s way too late to just say no

You can’t make it here anymore



Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store

Just like the ones we made before

’Cept this one came from Singapore

I guess we can’t make it here anymore



Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin

Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in

Should I hate ’em for having our jobs today

No I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams

All lily white and squeaky clean

They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need

Their sh@# don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed

Their kids won’t bleed in the da$% little war

And we can’t make it here anymore



Will work for food

Will die for oil

Will kill for power and to us the spoils

The billionaires get to pay less tax

The working poor get to fall through the cracks

Let ’em eat jellybeans let ’em eat cake

Let ’em eat sh$%, whatever it takes

They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps

If they can’t make it here anymore



And that’s how it is

That’s what we got

If the president wants to admit it or not

You can read it in the paper

Read it on the wall

Hear it on the wind

If you’re listening at all

Get out of that limo

Look us in the eye

Call us on the cell phone

Tell us all why



In Dayton, Ohio

Or Portland, Maine

Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains

That’s done closed down along with the school

And the hospital and the swimming pool

Dust devils dance in the noonday heat

There’s rats in the alley

And trash in the street

Gang graffiti on a boxcar door

We can’t make it here anymore



James Mcmurtry

Wow. It’s getting pretty grim in here.



 I know, I know, it’s reality.

It’s always darkest just before it goes completely black!

Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care....

Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care....



What the *&^% did those lyrics mean anyway?

A STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC FROM CECIL’S STOREHOUSE OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Who is Jimmy, and why does he crack corn?



October 30, 1998

Dear Cecil:



Who is Jimmy, and why does he crack corn?



— Nruggierbc, via AOL



Cecil replies:



I don’t care. OK, so it’s obvious. Sue me.



As you know from this column’s previous attempts, song interpretation is not a science, and the passage of time hasn’t made things any easier. A hundred years from now God knows what they’ll make of "Stairway to Heaven." "Jimmy Crack Corn" (originally "Jim Crack Corn") tells the story of a slave whose job is "to wait on Massa and hand him de plate / Pass down de bottle when he git dry / And bresh away de blue-tail fly." Among the things he’s supposed to bresh away de blue-tail fly from is Massa’s pony, using a hickory broom. One day when the flies are especially thick, one gets through and bites . . . well, either Massa or the pony, you can’t quite tell. Anyway, the pony bolts, Massa pitches into the ditch and dies, and the coroner’s jury blames the blue-tail fly. "Jim[my] crack corn, I don’t care / Ole Massa gone away."



Scratch around and you’ll find some interesting takes on this song. When we consulted Tom Miller, Straight Dope curator of music, he told us about an interpretation he’d picked up from Charlie Maddox, a musician in Shenandoah, Virginia. Maddox said "crack corn" came from the old English term "crack," meaning gossip, and that "cracking corn" was a traditional Shenandoah expression for "sitting around chitchatting." Maddox claimed "Jimmy Crack Corn" was an abolitionist song, and that "blue-tail fly" referred to federal troops in their blue uniforms overthrowing the slave owners.



A conspicuous defect of this theory is that "Jimmy Crack Corn," published in 1846, is attributed to an outfit called the Virginia Minstrels. The Virginia Minstrels helped originate the blackface minstrel show, not one of your prime vehicles for abolitionist sentiment. The author of the song, though not definitely known, was probably a Virginia Minstrel named Daniel Emmett, a popular songwriter and musician whose best-known composition was the southern anthem "Dixie" (1859). Like his contemporary Stephen Foster, Emmett was a northerner who wrote sentimental songs about the south in black dialect. So don’t go looking for any deep social message.



Still, who is Jimmy and why did he crack corn? Maybe it’s about gossip, like the man said. But an equally plausible theory I’ve heard is that "cracking corn" means cracking open a jug of corn liquor. Try it next time your Massa goes away, and after a half dozen verses you won’t care either.



— Cecil Adams



Peace, Beads and I Think I’ll Crack Some Corn Now,

Prairie Doc

P.S. I was getting too close to caring again.

Hey Mr. W., you read my mind. I was gonna call

him Jimi Hendrix Groundhog.



I love all of Fogerty/CCR’s stuff. I made the mistake

of playing Fortunate Son on the jukebox the first

time I was at the local Vets’ Club. I seriously

almost wasn’t allowed to join. That’s one place

you never talk politics.

I heard an acoustic version of Fortunate Son by some new guy on the local college station the other day. I’ll try and find out who it is.



Peace, Beads and Good Lyrics Never Die,

Prairie Doc

P.S. Some things just never change, I guess.

He was short and fat, and rode out of the West

With a Mogen David on his silver vest.

He was mean and nasty right clear through,

Which was kinda weird, ’cause he was yellow too.



They called him Irving.

Big Irving.

Big, short Irving.

Big, short, fat Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.



He came from the old Bar Mitzvah spread,

With a 10-gallon yarmulke on his head.

He always followed his mother’s wishes,

Even on the range he used two sets of dishes.



Irving.

Big, fat Irving.

Big sissy Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.



A hundred and forty-one could draw faster than he,

But Irving was looking for one forty-three.

Walked into Sol’s Saloon like a man insane,

And ordered three fingers of two cents plain.



Irving.

Big, fat Irving.

Big sport Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.



One day Bad Max happened into town.

His aim was to shoot fat Irving down.

Bad Max said, "Draw, and draw right now!"

And Irving drew, drew a picture of a cow.



Irving.

Big, fat Irving.

Big gunfighter Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.



The James Boys was comin’ on a train at first sun,

And the town said, "Irving, we need your gun."

When that train pulled in at the break of dawn,

Irving’s gun was there, but Irving was gone.



Irving.

Big, fat Irving.

Big help, Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.



Well, finally Irving got three slugs in the belly.

It was right outside the Frontier Deli.

He was sittin’ there twirlin’ his gun around,

And butterfingers Irving gunned himself down!



Irving.

Big, fat Irving.

Big dum-dum Irving.

Big dum-dum dead Irving.

The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.

Really.



Frank Gallup