Aaron Lewis: A Patriot with a Guitar and Gun

***UPDATE: This post has been updated and corrected.

On December 11, 2009 – just over a month after the shooting rampage that left thirteen dead and over thirty wounded at Ft. Hood – Aaron Lewis (lead singer of Staind) performed his song “Country Boy” for the troops on the military installation.

Before he played it, he leaned into the microphone and said it was his “first attempt at a country song.” And when he was finished, everyone knew they’d not simply heard a country song, rather, they’d heard one sung by a true American.

In fact, Lewis has proven himself nothing less than a patriot since that day.

In the song, Lewis talks of how the music of outlaw country purists like Hank Williams Jr. taught him about life. Sings Lewis:

Hank taught me how to stay alive

You’ll never catch me out the house without my .9 or .45

I got a big orange tractor and a diesel truck

My idea of heaven is chasing white-tail bucks

And as a country boy I know I can survive

Anyone who’s listened to Lewis “first attempt at a country song” knows that he is singing from his heart. He’s not talking about things that are of little importance, but which is paramount. And his convictions are unwavering, which is another thing he’s proud of:

Now two flags fly above my land

That really sum up how I feel

One’s the colors that fly high and proud

The red, the white, the blue

The other one’s got a rattlesnake with a simple statement made

“Don’t tread on me” is what is says and I’ll take that to my grave

Because this is me

Proud to be American and strong in my beliefs

And I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again

Because I never need a government to hold my hand

And I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again

Because my family’s always fought and died to save this land

And a country boy is all I’ll ever be

In one of his more recently released songs, “The Story Never Ends,” Lewis focuses on his immediate family with the same passion that marked his earlier descriptions of freedom and independence. In that song, he sings from the perspective of returning home after months away from his family:

Another two months on the road

Just two more miles and I’ll be home to what I know

Where things move a little slower

And people always wave goodbye and say hello

This is my home

This is where I belong

Where my daughter’s go to school

Where opinions are strong

Where my neighbors are my friends

And the story Never ends

Aaron Lewis loves America the way our grandfathers who stormed Iwo Jima did; the way the colonists who fought off the Red Coats did; the way the Navy Seals who died last month did.

Perhaps the most fitting summation of Lewis’ love for this country is found in the narrative Charlie Daniels provides as he closes out the single-version of “Country Boy“:

I love my country, I love my guns, I love my family

I love the way it is now, and anyone who tries to change it has to come through me

That should be all our attitudes, ’cause this America, and a Country Boy is good enough for me son