…in more ways than one…
WASHINGTON — On the evening of May 1, 1976, Ronald Reaganwarbled the lyrics of The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You into a telephone from a hotel in Indiana.
On the other end of the line, hundreds of Reagan revolutionaries in Houston burst into applause as the former California governor’s rendition of the state song punctuated their giddy celebration of his 2-to-1 thrashing of incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in that day’s Texas presidential primary.
Many if not most of you Texans probably know this already , but “The Eyes of Texas” is NOT the official state song. The official state song of Texas is “Texas, Our Texas.” I was actually prepared to give the reporter the benefit of the doubt; when I read that I thought, “okay, maybe it was changed in the late ’70s or early ’80s.” But no. If you click that link and read, you will see that “Texas, Our Texas” was adopted as the official Texas state song in 1929.
And since the No. 1 rule on the Internet is “Pictures or it did not happen,” here you go:
But remember, folks, Authorized Journalists are better than bloggers because they have editors and fact-checkers and shit!
And for your other Authorized Journalist FAIL of the weekend…
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Sarah Palin said Friday that America is dangerously out of step with the values of former President Ronald Reagan, and warned that runaway spending and a ballooning bureaucracy in Washington had put the nation on a “road to ruin.”…
Palin received a roaring ovation, but Reagan’s son told The Associated Press in an interview that he doesn’t see anything in common between his dad and the former Alaska governor, who was invited to speak by the event’s sponsor, the conservative Young America’s Foundation.
Why would any sentient human being give a shit about what Ron Reagan thinks about his dad’s legacy? You see what they did there, right? They picked the flaming liberal of the family for said family’s viewpoint, with predictable results:
“Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She’s doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news,” Reagan says.
“She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been,” said Reagan, a political independent whose politics lean left.
Now how many people who read that are going to think it’s representative of the family’s opinion? Why couldn’t they have gotten the opinion of Michael Reagan? Of course we all know the answer to that question, but it’s still incredibly sloppy journalism.
Live from the Alamo City 
February 6, 2011 at 11:11 |
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt in this case, ’cause like I told you, we were taught in school that that was the state song. I had a major WTF moment when Bobbie brought a state symbols thing home with the correct one on it. Why we were taught wrong I cannot say. Maybe San Antonio preferred that one, and for decades we refused to admit it? Man, to this day I can sing you the wrong one, but with the right one it’s like when I’d go to sing my school song back in the day “Texas our Texas so wonderful so grand…lalalalalalala…” Sigh.
February 6, 2011 at 11:30 |
Here’s the Official Unofficial State Song of Texas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xjGgiDloRg
February 6, 2011 at 22:52 |
I move we make that the official state song. Can’t think of one that better captures the native outlook, really. Before I clicked through I was hoping that’s what you’d linked to.
February 6, 2011 at 11:41 |
I’d guess that The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You could be thought of as the unofficial state song of Texas. You have a similar situation in Australia; Waltzing Matilda is not the official national anthem, but is considered by many to be the unofficial anthem Down Under.
February 6, 2011 at 13:05 |
“Texas our Texas” brings back the smell of paste, crayons, and chalk boards. We sang it almost every morning for years, as I recall. Pretty good memories.
“The Eyes of Texas are upon you”, while we sang it occasionally, I really always associated with UT.
“Screw you, we’re from Texas” I hadn’t heard before, little abrasive, but I kind of liked it.
February 6, 2011 at 13:37 |
I heard Screw You before it was out on records, RWH had been doing it live for a pretty long while before he recorded it. Still makes me laugh and his best bands/records have been the one with Gurf doing the production and guitars, my two cents anyway. And Ray Wylie often DOES look like quite a bit like a dope dealer out on bail, I’d say most of the time. He goes to AA these days but he didn’t change his uniform much 😉
Perhaps they didn’t ask Michael Reagan because he was doing something useful like setting powerboat racing records instead of sitting around being a whiny liberal squeak-toy like Ron?
February 6, 2011 at 19:40 |
Point #1, I thought San Antonio Rose was your state song.
Point #2, the only reason that anyone listens to Ron Reagan is because he continually trashes his dad. Other than that, he’d be dismissed as the intellectual light weight he is.
February 8, 2011 at 10:01 |
“Authorized journalists” fail because journalism is no longer their job. Propaganda is. They know what they do. They have sold their souls to the Devil.