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Moron Country Singer Compares John Walker to Jesus
'U.S. Taliban' Inspires Controversial Ballad
July 22, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A new country-rock song that compares American Taliban John Walker Lindh to Jesus Christ is drawing both raves and howls of indignation just days after the 21-year-old pleaded guilty to aiding the former Afghan regime.
Recorded in Nashville by the maverick Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Steve Earle, "John Walker's Blues" is a stately ballad punctuated by the sound of Arabic prayers, and makes reference to Lindh's interest in music videos, boy bands, and religious fanaticism.
Over a layered backdrop of electric guitars recorded backward, the song serves as a kind of nightmarish funhouse-mirror version of Fess Parker's classic "Ballad of Davy Crockett" of the 1950s:
"We came to fight the jihad, our hearts were pure and strong.
We filled the air with our prayers and we prayed for our martyrdom.
Allah has some other plans, a secret not revealed.
Now they're dragging me back with my head in the sack to the land of the infidel.
If I should die, I'll rise up to the sky like Jesus."
The song is featured on Earle's forthcoming album "Jerusalem," which touches on a number of political and social issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It offers a rare sympathetic view of Lindh, the Californian dubbed the "American Taliban" after he was captured fighting alongside troops of Afghanistan's fundamentalist Muslim rulers in November.
UNPATRIOTIC ANTHEM
Some Nashville commentators quickly labeled the song unpatriotic -- par for the course, they say, for an alternative country singer who has long challenged the down-home platitudes of mainstream country music.
"This puts him in the same category as Jane Fonda and John Walker and all those people who hate America," says Nashville talk show host Steve Gill.
"We'll give it airplay once and then it's going into the dustbin of history, where it belongs. I'm not surprised that Steve's singing about that traitor. I'm going to play it just once, and then we'll rip the shred out of it. This is not gonna be a big hit for Steve."
"I'm just an American boy, raised on MTV,
And I've seen all the kids in the soda pop bands,
But none of them look like me.
So I started looking round, and I heard the word of God.
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
of Allah, Peace be upon him."
MARXIST COUNTRY STAR
Earle has joked that he's thinking about leaving the country once the CD is released in September, and he told an audience at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario earlier this month: "This song just may get me ... deported."
Earle was in Europe on July 15, when Lindh pleaded guilty to two counts of assisting the Taliban and carrying explosives, and could not be reached for comment.
In a plea deal which scrapped the government's more serious terrorism charges, Lindh agreed to serve 20 years in prison.
The ruckus over the Lindh song marks a return to the political spotlight for Earle, who irritated the Nashville establishment for years, calling himself a Marxist and joining the movement to abolish the death penalty as well as the campaign against land mines.
Earle's supporters say the outspoken singer -- who received his eighth Grammy nomination for his 2001 album "Transcendental Blues" and has won many other accolades -- will welcome controversy.
"He's a big guy," says Grant Alden, publisher of the magazine No Depression, which specializes in alternative country music. "He can take care of himself if anyone confronts him on the issue."
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