Ragged Old Flag ~ Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square

On a park bench, an old man was sittin’ there.

I said, “Your old court house is kinda run down,

He said, “Naw, it’ll do for our little town.”

I said, “Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit, and that’s a ragged old flag you got hangin’ on it.”

He said, “Have a seat”, and I sat down,

“Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town?”

I said, “i think it is”

He said, “I don’t like to brag, but we’re kinda proud of That Ragged Old Flag”

“You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,

When Washington took it across the Delaware.

and it got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,

writing “Say Can You See”

It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson tugging at its seams.

and it almost fell at the Alamo

beside the Texas flag,

But she waved on through.

She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,

And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.

There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,

And the south wind blew hard on

That Raged Old Flag

“On Flanders Field in World War I,

She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,

She turned blood red in World War II

She hung limp, and low, a time or two,

She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent

by her Uncle Sam.

She waved from our ships upon the briny foam

and now they’ve about quit wavin’ back here at home

in her own good land here She’s been abused ,

She’s been burned, dishonored, denied an’ refused,

And the government for which she stands

Has been scandalized throughout the land.

And she’s getting thread bare, and she’s wearin’ thin,

But she’s in good shape, for the shape she’s in.

Cause she’s been through the fire before

and I believe she can take a whole lot more.

“So we raise her up every morning

And we bring her down slow every night,

We don’t let her touch the ground,

And we fold her up right.

On second thought

I DO like to brag

Cause I’m mighty proud of

That Ragged Old Flag”

United States of America