I got the CD in the first place for "Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?" It is mostly a breathy Bill Anderson narration with a female chorus. He's basically lamenting the no-goodniks that our young people look up to today (1970ish) versus his boyhood heroes. I mocked it on air, and would do so again- but still with an appreciation for his execution. The examples and explanations have real personality, and a strong air of real conviction- more so than a lot of his better known hits.

I saw a group of boys the other day standing in the corner of a playground, looking and laughing at a magazine. And I overheard one of the boys say, 'Man is he ever cool.' And he pointed to the man whose picture was on the magazine cover. And everybody kind of said under there breath, 'Yeah, he's cool all right' And I got sick to my stomach, because I had seen the cover. The man that they were talking about had instigated a riot in one of our major cities last summer. The magazine was writing about how the police were 'unkind' to him, the judges were 'unfair' with him, and how he talked back and slung his long hair about and cussed, and 'did his thing.' And they made him into a regular hero.

The most musically satisfying jam comes from Dave Dudley singing the "Viet Nam Blues". This is a pretty good trick for something that is basically through-composed, one long narrative lacking a recurring melody or chorus. Kris Kristofferson wrote this evil talking blues about a soldier on leave in DC, wandering amongst the anti-war protesters and having to actively restrain himself from beating ass on some ignoramuses circulating a petition of support for Ho Chi Minh.

Three of these of the least interest were probably actually the biggest hits. "God Bless America Again" along with "God Must Have Blessed America" and the infamous "God Bless the USA" are pretty much Madison Avenue jingle writing. They have nice pro-American sentiments of a muted and impersonal nature, bathed in sappy strings. Beyond anything else, they're not particularly country. At that though, I will admit that they are reasonably well written bromides; they do have hooks.