Anchorage, Alaska, United States

From The Extended Group

Revision as of 14:59, 20 January 2006

The fictitious hit first single of an absolutely retarded (and also fictitious) American country singer who sings songs with the exact same melody and length and only varies the text before "United States".

Examples:

• "St. Louis, Missouri, United States"
• "Brasilia, Brazil, United States"
• "Munich, Germany, United States"
• "London, England, United States"

History

While on the Harrison Lake Trip in Dry Tent, Terry, in response to Brett talking about his trip to Alaska earlier that summer, spontaneously sang the line "Anchorage, Alaska, United States" in a low, southern, countryish drawl. A subsequent line , "St. Louis, Missouri, United States," was echoed using the same format and inflection. This immediately gained popularity (for reasons that escape most) and others at the trip began chiming in with different songs (see examples above).

The retarded country songs were met with highly polarized reactions from the group - Some, like Kevin thoroughly enjoyed it. Together, Terry and Kevin planned out the retarded country singer's whole first album, which included thirteen five second tracks filled with dubious geography.

Others, as mentioned earlier, really hated it. Rama in particular expressed heavy doubts about the true hilarity of the hypothetical country singer and yelled at us to stop.

Analysis

While started as absurdist experiment by Terry, the development of more songs took on a more substantial meaning as a satire of blindly patriotic themes in country music. Somewhere between the tongue-in-cheek nationalism of Country Joe and the Fish, and the authentically American-centric stylings of Merle Haggard and Toby Keith, the "United States" songlist was as much a social commentary, punctuated with a deep concern for lack of geographic literacy, as it was Terry just being Terry.