Elvis & God Bless The USA

“God Bless The USA” is an American anthem that gets played on every patriotic holiday, including 4th of July.  The singer, Lee Greenwood, wrote the song in 1983, and re-recorded in 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq.  But what is the real story behind it?  According to Lee, Elvis Presley played a part.

Back in the early 70s, Lee Greenwood was a lounge singer in Las Vegas.  “One of the gigs I had was at the Flamingo Hilton.  I was an opening act for Bill Medley, who was half of the Righteous Brothers.  But in the main room was Elvis Presley.  Elvis would come in the theater sometimes and walk on my stage, and we became sort of friends, as close as you can get with a megastar.  I’d go in to watch his show, and he would do the American Trilogy to close his show.  So I thought, if I ever get that kind of success, I’m going to do the Trilogy.”

“So years later, when I came to Nashville, I had 5 or 6 hits in a row, I thought it’s time to do the Trilogy.  I was traveling one night from Arkansas to Texas, and I thought, why don’t I just write my own?  And so I did.  I wrote God Bless the USA.  I put a lot of things in it from my heart.  The first line of the song, ‘If tomorrow all the things were gone I worked for I’d worked for in my life,’ is not about the military, but it’s about being a farmer.  My grandparents raised me on a farm in Sacramento California, and when the economy got so bad, they couldn’t keep their farm, that’s what that line meant.  I also put in the line about ‘The men who died,’ and I’ve been asked about that a lot.  They want to know who died.  And I said, ‘Those who sacrificed for our freedom, who mean so much to us, we can never forget them.’  And of course, I put God first.”

So without Elvis Presley and the “American Trilogy,” we would not have “God Bless The USA” today.

Category: NEWS