Best American Icon?

Who is the best, most "real" American icon. Elvis? Bob Dylan? Johnny Cash? Bill Clinton?!? Who do you think it is and why?

and if you have to ask why, then you don't deserve to know

Woody Guthrie

Man, the painful decisions he made, and obviously tortured himself over. A President who took his responsibility to care for this country to heart and suffered for it. It is amazing looking at pictures and seeing the changes his face went through as war took it's toll on him. Here was a man not afraid to visit the battlefields, not afraid to mourn for the dead, care for the sick. A man who helped us take a huge step towards something we have yet to accomplish in this country...true freedom for all. And through all of it he comes across as not arrogant or power hungry--just human. :hi:

FDR is my favorite president, but Lincoln is a true icon. I'm glad that the revisionist revisionist history is coming around and giving this man his due.

Defined American literature and embodies many of the contradictions that America is.

PS: Although I DO love Johnny Cash!

With his dignity intact, creating art all the while, and he never threw stones at anyone who didn't deserve it. He never forgot his humble beginning, either.

If his life's not a metaphor for a strong and healthy America, I don't know what is.

edit: typos

until 2003. Now all of a sudden everyone loves him.

husband teethed on vinyl Cash records. You walk in the wrong circles. The Grumpy house is filled daily with the sounds of Cash, Haggard, Hank Sr., Waylon and Willie. Not to forget Tammy or Loretta. :hi:

I won't name him my American Icon but he has been beloved by my family long before his single Hurt came out. Which I cannot bear to listen to, because it is way to raw.

Thanks,Laura

"Hurt" is a Nine Inch Nails song, written by the most depressed man in history, Trent Reznor (who also happens to be one of the most talented musicians in history. No coincidence, probably.)

assessment that no one ever talked about Mr. Cash. Who has far many greater songs than Nine Inch Nails. Perhaps in your generation he wasn't talked about, but he was my husband's family's favorite and one of my own family's favorite. They passed that love down to us. I am 34 and could give two bits for much of what is passed along as music on the radio. :hi:

No offense, but it doesn't really get any better than Johnny Cash, or perhaps Willie Nelson. Who is one of the all time greatest songwriters of all time.

i got into him 1993 after u2 turned me onto him with his guest appearanc eon zoorapa (i was 16 at the time) and bought all of his american recordings albums as they came out-and stocked up on vinyl finds from flea markets

unfortunately, no one paid a lot of attention to them until the video for 'hurt' was released for americanIV, which was easily the least of the bunch.

now that he's dead, it is hip to like him all of the sudden. i see way too many folks wearing crisp, pristine, cash shirts that they just purchased from spencers

(and yes, i know i sound like some elitist 'i liked him first' adolescent music purist by saying this)

:hi:

but it wasn't cool for you (not you specifically) to hear it until last year.

Not that I blame the late-comers, not their fault when they were born or where, but JC was omnipresent in my life (I'm 40 this week) for as long as I can remember. I didn't get it myself until I heard him do Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" back in 1982.

I agree with your assessment. Although I got into him around 1972, in diapers....when my mom would put his album "Johnny Cash, The Sun Years" on. And I would dance around the living room. ;)

although I remember watching his show as a kid, when was it? late '60s? I loved doing Cash imitations in high school in the '80s with friends of mine who also dug him.

(Wavering deep-throated and ultimately silly imitation): "Well, I see the train a-comin', it's comin' 'round the bend, and I ain't seen no sunshine since I don't know when. Well, I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. When I hear that train a-comin', I hang my head and cry."

Yeah, baby!

only that they heard. "Ommmmmmmmmmm. I find it very, very easy to be true."

:smoke:
dbt

rags to riches story, but also intellectually uncurious, greedy, faux-Christian, barbarous management style, and able to churn up good farmland and turn it into parking lots at an amazing rate, and total moral freedom to squash all local competition, and dedicated to his bottom line and shareholder value above all else while somehow convincing his employees that he is their savior and they work for the most employee friendly, America-loving company in the US.

The other real American could be PT Barnum.

but that pretty much sums up today's America

It's all about Jonathan and Martha's boy, as far as I'm concerned.

jk.

I'd have to say George Washington, just because he was the first president of the U.S. and he also lead the minutemen against the British to help free our country (and subsequently turn it into a new one). :)

He had ample opportunity to set himself up as King, but he insisted on this radical idea that republican democracy might work.

because it's impossible to find anything negative about him (the RW has tried, but never succeeded).
there will never be anyone who has accomplished so much good in such a short time here on earth.

Oh...sorry. :silly: