JD Vance tunes into Merle Haggard’s “America First” ahead of RNC speech
“America First” was a theme in JD Vance’s speech Wednesday at the Republican National Convention, and it was even a theme of his onstage intro music.
Vance greeted the crowd at the RNC on Wednesday night to accept Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s nomination for vice president. His intro music as he took the stage accompanied chants of “JD’s” “America First” by Merle Haggard. That song has been playing since Vance arrived at the Fiserv Forum on Monday afternoon.
Nashville-based band Sixwire played Merle Haggard’s “America First” while Vance hugged, shook hands and signed autographs with delegates on the first day.
Haggard’s music had long been popular with the Republican Party, but Haggard lived by his own rules and his music ranged from ultra-patriotic to an ode to longtime Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Who is Merle Haggard?
Haggard was a longtime musician whose music inspired many country musicians over the years.
Born in 1937 in Oildale, California to refugees from the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, he spent his early years in a house his father, James Haggard, built out of an abandoned refrigerator truck. After his father died when he was 9, Haggard devoted himself to a life of crime that eventually ended with him going to prison. There he began making music.
After being paroled in 1960 following a two-year stint in San Quentin State Prison, he began pursuing music seriously at age 23. Just two years after his release from prison, Haggard signed with Tally Records in 1962. His first chart hit, “Sing A Sad Song,” came in the last week of 1963. From then on, he continued to play, having chart-topping hits for decades.
Merle Haggrad’s music was about life and not about a particular political view
Haggard sang about interracial love relationships in the song “Irma Jackson” and about illegal immigrants in “The Immigrant”.
He later criticized the media coverage of the Iraq War in 2003’s “That’s the News” and the war itself in “Rebuild America First.” In 2007, he wrote the ode “Hillary,” a song in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy.
Is Merle Haggard alive?
No, Haggard died on April 6, 2016, on his 79th birthday.
Watch “America First” by Merle Haggrad
What are the lyrics to “America First” by Merle Haggard?
(Verse)Why don’t we free this United States? We’re the ones who need it the most. Let’s get help from the rest of the world for a change. And let’s rebuild America first.
Our highways and bridges are falling apart. Who is blessed and who is cursed? There is work to be done all over the world. But let’s rebuild America first.
Who’s on the hill and who’s watching the valley? And who’s in charge of all this? God bless the army and God bless our freedom. And damn it, the rest of everything.
Yes, the men in position are retreating. Freedom is stuck in reverse. Let’s get out of Iraq and get back on the right track. And let’s rebuild America first.
Why don’t we free this United States? We’re the ones who need it the most. You think I’m talking rubbish? Guys, I’m not kidding. I make twenty trips a year from coast to coast.
-From Genius.com
USA TODAY contributed to this report.
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