Tag: Sailor

We’re living in a plastic land
Somebody give me a hand, yeah

I really like the organ in this song as well as the race car that’s revving up… it’s so vibrant. Miller also sets the mood with the harmonica he is playing. It’s too bad his earlier albums get lost in the shuffle because of his success from The Joker on. Those albums show a different Miller than the masses know from his big hits.

This song was released in 1968 on the Sailor LP which was the Steve Miller Band’s second LP. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts and #27 in Canada. Although the song was popular in the late 1960s, it truly gained a resurgence on rock radio in the late 1970s due to the success of the Fly Like an Eagle album.

Out of all Steve Miller songs…this one may be my favorite. This song peaked at #92 and then charted again at #49 in 1974. It wasn’t a big hit but it did get played on FM radio. Boz Scaggs was in Miller’s band at this time and sang harmonies.

Steve Miller: I had come out of a radical environment at the University of Wisconsin in the early ‘60s. I had been a Freedom Rider in the Civil Rights campaign and then I got involved in the Vietnam War demonstrations and debates. That was all going on, and then I ended up out in California where the psychedelic revolution was taking place. So when you combine those things, it was very powerful [creatively].

“Living in the U.S.A.” was put together with the idea of playing at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 in Chicago. That was the one where the cops beat everybody up—Mayor [Richard] Daley brought out the Chicago police. So it was a political tune. It came out, and it was kind of a hit. Then it went away, and then about five or six years later it sold 100,000 copies in a week in Philadelphia for no reason whatsoever.

Living In The U.S.A.

Stand back, stand back
Stand back, stand back

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.

Where are you goin’ to
What are you gonna do
Do you think that it will be easy
Do you think that it will be pleasin’, hey

Stand back, what’d you say
Stand back, I won’t pay
Stand back, I’d rather play
Stand back

It’s my freedom
Ah, don’t worry ’bout me, babe
I got to be free, babe
Hey

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.

Stand back, dietician
Stand back, television
Stand back, politician
Stand back, mortician

Oh, we got to get away
Living in the U.S.A.
Come on baby, Owwww

I see a yellow man, a brown man
A white man, a red man
Lookin’ for Uncle Sam
To give you a helpin’ hand
But everybody’s kickin’ sand
Even politicians
We’re living in a plastic land
Somebody give me a hand, yeah

Oh, we’re gonna make it, baby
Oh, we’re going to shake it, baby
Oh, don’t break it
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Come on baby, hey
Hey, hey
In the U.S.A., babe yeah

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Don’t worry ’bout me, babe
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
I got to be free
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Come on try it, you can buy it, you can leave it next week, yeah
Somebody give me a cheeseburger