Country singer compares JW Lindh to Jesus

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - 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

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What's the big deal? Earle isn't saying he agrees w/ Lindh. He's writing from the POV of the boy. And it seems pretty accurate - I bet that confused boy thought his heart was 'pure and strong'. I bet he got caught up in that crap and 'prayed for [his] martyrdom.' I bet that Lindh and his cohorts talked about America as 'the land of the infidel.'

Where does he glorify it? Sounds like a description of what it's like. Is Earle saying 'let's all be like him'? I don't see it in the song.

Big J

That 'flushing' sound you hear - it's his career going down the drain.

Sort of an odd 'story' to choose to tell in song given the link to the deaths of thousands of Americans. Gee, can't imagine why anyone would be upset. Sort of like singing about dragging a black man to death to 'keep the race pure', just tellin' it from the perspective of the white supremacist is all.

You know nothing about his audience. They aren't the typical Nashville mullet headed, tank top wearing, thumb up their ass pinheads that listen to most country music.

He already pissed all those people off *years* ago. <g>

Linda C.

Could that mean they're the type of pinheads who support homicide bombings? (I have no idea....I've never heard of the guy)

On 7/22/02 7:41 PM, in article

I'm not really a Steve Earle fan, but one of my favourite songs of all time is his track 'Billy Austin,' where he sings from the POV of a boy about to be executed for killing a gas station attendant. Nobody freaks out and says that Earle is actually advocating killing gas station attendants.

Sounds like he's trying to generate some cheap heat in an attempt to increase what audience he has left. Maybe Kajagoogoo should reform and write a song from John Wayne Gacy's perspective?

Kajagoogoo? ROTFLMAO! Thanks for the blast from the past!

Maybe Kajagoogoo should reform and

You're right - I know nothing about his audience, nor do I care to. They sound like a very special class of pinheads.