Every Good Protest Deserves A Song

Back in 1768, John Dickinson penned the words to "The Liberty Song" as a protest of the Townshend Acts passed by Parliament. By our standards, the Acts weren't much, as long as you could ignore the whole "taxation without representation" problem. Luckily for us, our forefathers couldn't ignore that small detail.

In 1768, two years before the Boston Massacre, five years before the Boston Tea Party, seven years before Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and eight years before the Declaration of Independence, "The Liberty Song" was one of the most popular songs in the land. Dickinson didn't have to write music for the tune. He simply borrowed the music to the British naval song "Heart of Oak" and gave it a patriotic makeover with new words. The song went, in part:

Come join hand in hand brave Americans all,
And rouse your bold hearts at fair Liberty's call;
No tyrannous acts shall suppress your just claim,
Or stain with dishonour America's name.

CHORUS
In Freedom we're born and in Freedom we'll live,
Our purses are ready,
Steady, Friends, Steady.
Not as slaves, but as Freemen our money we'll give.

Swarms of placemen and pensioners soon will appear
Like locusts deforming the charms of the year;
Suns vainly will rise, Showers vainly descend,
If we are to drudge for what others shall spend.

CHORUS

Then join hand in hand brave Americans all,
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall;
In so Righteous a cause let us hope to succeed,
For Heaven approves of each generous deed.

As applicable as those words may still be in 2009, I just don't see many Americans rallying around a sea chanty. I think the Save Our Nation movement needs a new protest song.

In the spirit of the vanguard of protestors in Seattle and Mesa, Arizona, and in the spirit of Rick Santelli's proposed Chicago Tea Party, I offer The Offspring's "Defy You" as the message the sons and daughters of Liberty need to send to those who would bankrupt our children in order to score cheap political points.



You want to send a message of opposition? Let's make this eight-year old song the most downloaded song on iTunes. An act of protest that costs less than a dollar, but would perhaps help our opponents realize just how many Americans are opposed to the destruction of the ideals of our Republic.