The Officers Who Hid from Major Hasan

“sagman,” a commenter and frequent parodist at Lucianne.com, has done a number on the Army officers who gave the jihad-spouting Nidal Hasan a pass. It’s a take-off on the theme song of the John Ford movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:

Reply 3—Posted by: sagman, 11/12/2009 7:20:57 AM

Sometimes I have to come at something in a totally different way in order to express myself. This is an instance. What follows is not meant to trivialize what happened. For me, this is a cathartic exercise, done with the utmost seriousness.

Inspired by the haunting lyrics of ”The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”:

However, we can better appreciate sagman’s parody by first listening to the original song and reading the lyrics of the first two verses:

When Liberty Valance rode to town
The womenfolk would hide, they’d hide.
When Liberty Valance walked around
The men would step aside.
‘Cause the point of a gun was the only law
That Liberty understood.
When it came to shootin’ straight and fast——
He was mighty good.

From out of the East a stranger came,
A law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need
To tame a troubled land.
‘Cause the point of a gun was the only law
That Liberty understood.
When it came to shootin’ straight and fast——
He was mighty good.

Here now is sagman’s version. I’ve changed the punctuation slightly. Also, he doesn’t give his version a title. I would call it: “The Officers Who Hid from Major Hasan.”

When Major Hasan came into a room
The PC crowd denied; they’d hide.
When Major Hasan espoused jihad
Apologists let it slide.
‘Cause the price of a clash would give them pause,
This the Major understood.
When he wanted to slip by those in charge——
He knew he could.

Home-grown in our land this enemy strode real proud,
A Koran in his fist, we missed
The kind of a threat this traitor posed
To those he served amidst.
‘Cause not causing waves was the only concern
That the analysts really had.
When it came to gauging Hasan’s mind——
They were really bad.

- end of initial entry -

November 13

Spencer Warren writees:

A bit of trivia: The song is not heard in the movie. This has happened with other films of the period, e.g. Man of the West, whose song sung by co-star Julie London is never heard.

LA replies:

Are you saying the song was produced after the movie and separately from it?

Spencer warren replies:

Not saying that. The song would have been commissioned with the intention to use it in the film. I suppose it might have been composed and recorded after the film was completed. Songs were obligatory for most major Westerns of that period following the success of High Noon. But for whatever reason the producer or director sometimes decided not to use the song. Maybe they decided they didn’t like the song or it would not go well with the finished film. (I cannot see the Liberty Valance song being appropriate for the film and would not be surprised if Ford rejected it.) As I mentioned, Julie London, a big singer in 1958, recorded a song for Man of the West, in which she plays the female lead, and it is not heard in the film either—although it is listed in the opening credits! A profit could still be made on a song through record sales—evidently the Valance song was sold as a recording.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 12, 2009 05:28 PM | Send