HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” focused on immigration Sunday night, and ended with a hilarious, high-production music video making fun of Lee Greenwood’s corny song “God Bless the USA.”
The rousing new anthem has patriotic pop stylings similar to Greenwood’s well-known ditty—but the lyrics offer an honest twist. The video features a cowboy hat-wearing Will Ferrell walking out of a gas station diner into a rugged American landscape.
“You studied hard. You did your best. Filled out the forms and passed the tests,” Ferrell sings. “Now you’re part of a land that’s so God blessed, and starting today, you’re American.”
He proceeds to touch on some of the good things about America—“and some of the real big problems; we’re kind of hoping you could help us solve them.”
Problems like: “student debt and CTE. The war on drugs and Scientology. Boeing airlines and Ted-fucking-Cruz. They’re all American! Now, so are you.”
The England-born Oliver recalled his own experience becoming an American citizen, which included a final ceremony where Greenwood’s uber-patriotic anthem was played. He did some digging and found out that the song has been played at citizenship ceremonies for at least a decade now, and Greenwood receives $700 a year from the government in exchange.
The comedian then argued that Greenwood’s Trump support, bizarre Bible sales, and attempts to trademark the phrase “God Bless the USA” have become too problematic to continue this tradition. Oliver proposed “a song that celebrates the nation new Americans are about to join, and the process that they’ve been through, while also not soft-pedaling some hard truths about it.”
Enlisting beloved comedic actor Ferrell to bring it to life, Oliver offered to pay the U.S. government $701 to use their new song instead of Greenwood’s.
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