PS

9/11 made US shiver.

Every SOUNDBITE WAS AQUIVER.

THE Bad news FROM OUR doorstep;

LET W TAKE THE NEXT step.

 

I can’t remember if I cried

When WE read about THE widowed brideS

But something touched US deep inside

The day the TOWERS died.

 

 

So bye-bye, MS. American Pie

WE DROVE OUR HUMMERS FOR SAUD, I

SAY THAT ALLY is HIGH

And OUR SOLDIERS were drinkin’ whiskey and rye

Singin’, "This MAY be the day that I die."

"This MAY be the day that I die."

 

Did you READ the book of love

And do you have faith in ALLAH above

If the KORAN tells you so?

OR do you believe in DESIRE TO KNOW,

Can SCIENCE save OUR mortal soulS,

And can you teach me TO KISS, REAL SLOW?

 

Well, I know that you're in love with SIN

'CAUSE I SAW YOU PRAYING WITH MR. BIN 

YEAH, WE'D ALL kicked off OUR shoes,

AND I dig THOSE MISSING pews

 

He was a WEALTHY teenage broncin’ buck

With FAST CARS and DADDY'S pickup truckS,

AND HE knew he'd be PUSHING LUCK

The day the TOWERS died.

 

AND HE'S BEEN SINGING...

Bye-bye, MS. American Pie

YOU DROVE YOUR HUMMERS FOR US

YOU STUPID FUCKS

And YOUR BAD old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye

Singin’, HALLIBURTON WILL DO WELL BY THIS (IS THERE SOMETHING AMISS?)

OH, HALLIBURTON WILL DO WELL BY THIS.  (SO WHAT IF IT DOESN'T RHYME PROPERLY.  C'MON BOYS!)

 

 

SO for SEVEN years we WERE on our own

And BECAME DUBAI QUITE THE rolling stone

But that’s not ALL THAT OUGHT TO be.

WHEN THE PREZ getS the king and queenS,

In THAT PLANE OBTAINED BY FAIR MEANS...

WITH VOTES that came from you and me.

 

YEAH, AND while THE king is looking down

A JEST WILL TAKE his thorny crown

EVEN ISRAEL CAN BE adjourned;

No verdict NEED BE returned

CAUSE IBN SAUD GETTING THEIR book of MARKS,

WILL GIVE THEM CAUSE TO GET UNPARKED.

We'll sing dirges TO THEIR SPARKED

The day the TOWERS died.

 

THEY'LL BE singing,

 

 

Bye-bye, MS. SAUDI Pie

WE SENT OUR CRUDE TO YOUR LEVEES

AND NOW WE'RE ALL BUT  PUMPED DRY

OUR good old boys ARE drinkin’ whiskey and rye

Singin’, "This MAY be the day that I die."

"This MAY be the day that I die."

 

Helter skelter FROM THAT DESERT swelter

W WANTED AN IRAQ SMELTER.

SO SIX miles high and fallin’ fast...

OSAMA SURE FOOLED the MASSED

AND HIS KIDS WHO PULLED OFF THAT BACKWARD pass,

With their KING, on the sidelines, WHAT a cast!

 

NOW WAS THAT STENCH THEIR sweet perfume

WALTZING to KISSINGER'S tuneS?

OUR HAWKS, THEY WERE ROMANCED,

Oh man how they PRANCED!

YEAH, SOME PRINCES HAD OSAMA HEELED

AND HIS RECRUITS, THEY refused to yield.

OH, GET A CLUE what was CONCEALED

The day the TOWERS died.

OUR HAWKS were singin'

 

Bye-bye, MS. American Pie

LET'S DRIVE OUR HUMMERS FOR SAUD, AND

FORGET THAT ALLY is HIGH.

And OUR BADASS boys WILL DRINK whiskey and rye

Singin’, "THAT will BE be the day that THEY die."

"THAT will BE be the day that THEY die."

 

The 'PUBS HAVING JUST LOST A race

Hey, WE'VE NOT MUCH OIL TO DRILL again.  (NOT HERE, ANYWAY)

BUT COME ON. MC BE NIMBLE, MC BE QUICK!

MC PUT AWAY THE PREZ' SHOCKING STICKS 

Cause WAR is the devil's only friend.  (UPFUND THE PEACE CORPS, DUDE)

 

OH, THAT NOVEMBER JOHN showED HIS AGE

My hands were clenched in fists of "rage"!!!  (YEAH, RIGHT!)

HEAR THESE WARNING BELLS

AND BREAK SOME KICKBACK SPELLS.

'CAUSE as the SMOKE climbed high THAT 'TEMBER night

AND LOOSED THE SACRIFICIAL FIGHT,

BANDAR WAS LAUGHING WITH DELIGHT

The day that the TOWERS died

 

I met a girl who sang the blues

And I asked her for some happy news,

But she SAID NOTHING and turned away.

SO I went down to the JEWELRY store

Where I’d BOUGHT GOLD years before

But the man there said MY DOLLARS couldn't pay.

 

And AT the street, RETIREES STEAMED

"'CAUSE TRADERS LIED", THE WORKERS SCREAMED

But ONLY CURSES DARE  BE SPOKEN;

THEIR ETHICs ARE JUST AS BROKEN.

And the three men I'D HAVE admireD most:

The father, son and the holy ghost,   [or DAVID, DICK, AND THE OTHER’S TOAST,]

THEY'D HAVE OK'D THAT ROAST

The day the TOWERS died.

 

(LET'S CLEAN IT UP NOW.)

And WE were singing,

Bye-bye, MS. American Pie

DROVE OUR HUMMERS FOR SAUD, I

SAY THAT ALLY is HIGH

And OUR SOLDIERs were drinkin’ whiskey and rye

Singin’, "THAT WON'T BE be the day that I die."

"THAT WON'T BE be the day that I die."

 

(LET'S REALLY CLEAN IT UP NOW)

LET'S BE singing,

 

Bye-bye, MS. American Pie

We drove our Chevy's to the levees

But the levees were dry...

HEY! THE EGGHEADS AREN'T drinkin’ whiskey and rye

BUT THINKING, "MUST THERE BE be A day that WE die?"

 

© 2008 - 20010  Don McLean, Bruce A. McHenry (email), and maybe you if you request to edit this.

 

 

 

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References

 

 

 

Missing video: Several months after 9/11, a video of Osama bin Laden speaking with associates showed him disparaging the assistant hijackers.  He appeared to be saying that they did not know they were on a suicide mission and laughed about their foolishness.  (It is almost certainly true that Osama generated the most profit of any of the family because the bin Laden construction company must have profited greatly from the post invasion construction boom in the Gulf.)

What is the likelihood that something like this conversation took place, circa 1992?

Westernized Saudi Prince: It is really too bad that Saddam was not removed during the Gulf War. The Middle East desperately needs to advance beyond religious and tribal mores towards more open and stable government for the long term.  Democracy in our country could turn our F-15's against Israel's. I have no desire for such a fight.

Bush I: We will agree on the need for responsible democracy throughout your region.  Iraq is one of the most advanced countries and a good place to start.  But the Gulf War coalition created no mandate for regieme change in Baghdad and Congress would balk at the cost especially of the subsequent occupation.  The potential expenses rankle my Yankee conservatism too.  But we may have to finish the job eventually.  Our softness let Hitler go much too far and the nuclear material coming out of the former Soviet Union is truly frightening.

Westernized Saudi Prince: Well at least we are not immediately threatened by Saddam and we owe you great thanks for that.

Bush I: We will do our best to honor Rooseveldt's promise to your grandfather.

Westernized Saudi Prince: But you would need another Pearl Harbor to finish the job?

Bush I: That's true.

"Stinnett wrote:"

Opinion polls in the summer of 1940 indicated that a majority of Americans did not want the country involved in Europe's war. Yet FDR's military and State Department leaders agreed that a victorious Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United States. They felt that Americans needed a call to action […] Roosevelt believed that his countrymen would rally only to oppose an overt act of war on the United States. The decision he made, in concert with his advisors, was to provoke Japan through a series of actions into an overt act: the Pearl Harbor attack.

"Himself a Navy veteran of the Pacific war drawn in by Pearl Harbor, Stinnett's overarching message was that engineering the attack was, at least arguably, a grim necessity. The American public was complacent in the face of Nazi aggression in Europe, but Roosevelt saw the bigger picture and felt that the United States had to get involved to save Britain and the world from Nazi aggression. The provocation policy Roosevelt adopted was based on an October 1940 memo written up by Arthur McCollum at the Office of Naval Intelligence that promoted eight actions to elicit a Japanese "mistake". One of these, point "F" recommended: "keep the main strength of the US Fleet […] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian islands". Stinnett was assisted greatly in his research by the Freedom of Information Act (explicitly thanking the act's author, Rep. John Moss, D-CA) and by Oliver Stone's film, JFK, which had put public pressure on President Clinton to declassify sheaves of secret files in the mid-1990s. McCollum's memo was apparently among those files."