"Fujiyama Mama" by Wanda Jackson (from the album, Rockin' With Wanda, 1958)
Lest we get too sentimental and patriotic this Memorial Day, and begin to think that those of us here in the Home of the Brave have always sat comfortably on the right side of the moral fence, go ahead and have a listen to this hard-swingin' bit of Americana from the late 1950s. Ostensibly just a bit of hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-rockabilly-woman posturing, Jackson's song makes good fun with the carnage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the middle of the previous decade. O, the compassion when Wanda compares her hard-lovin', take-no-prisoners bad self with the atom bomb's awesome might:
I've been to Nagasaki, Hiroshima too!
The things I did to them, baby, I can do to you.
Whoa.
Still, the tune does have a good beat, you can dance to it, and it features at least one inspired rhyme (my favorite is "sake" with "terbaccy").
But while you're celebrating your freedom, and paying tribute to those who've given their lives (and are still giving their lives) to support various key interests here in the Land of the Free, don't forget to think critically about that history as well.
Even with a rockabilly beat, it ain't always pretty.
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