Talk About Your Revolution
We Need Gretchen Peters’ “Independence Day” Now More Than Ever
[content warning: this article makes reference to domestic violence as depicted in the song “Independence Day”]
I have always been a fan of the iconic Martina McBride rendition of Gretchen Peters’ “Independence Day” — I probably listen to it on full volume 30 times a year. Full disclosure, my mother was McBride’s publicist when the song was released in 1993. I was one year old at that time, but the song would imbed into my consciousness over the course of my childhood as a chest-pounding anthem with a sad music video. Then, in my teen years, the song would be appropriated for nationalist purposes as a patriotic battle cry.
After insightful writing by Zach Shultz, Edward Morris at CMT, and Dave Paulson at The Tennessean, the song has been further interpreted as a feminist anthem against domestic violence — an interpretation that is abundantly bolstered by the lyrics and Peters herself.
As I see it, “Independence Day” is a songwriting masterpiece. The story is compelling, to be sure, but Peters uses allusion, metaphor, narrative, and subversive poetry to make a larger point about patriarchy, the state, and violence. I think her message is as relevant today as it was in 1993 and if the song had been written in 1830 it would have been just as important then too. I by no means wish to assume that I know what Peters, McBride, or producer Paul Worley intended when they created this work of art, but I think it deserves all the scrutiny and credit for brilliance as the Mona Lisa.
While we’re on the topic of visual art, it is worth mentioning the bravery and brilliance of the music video directed and produced by Deaton-Flanigen (Robert Deaton/George Flanigen). It cranks the symbolism up a notch, and there is no denying the impact this video made when it was released.
You can watch a video explanation and performance of the song here:
The following is a complete explication of the lyrics to “Independence Day” as I see it:
Well she seemed alright by dawn’s early light
Though she looked a little worried and weak
She tried to pretend he wasn’t drinkin’ again
But daddy’d left the proof on her cheek
In the very first line of the song we have an immediate allusion to the “The Star-Spangled Banner” otherwise known as the National Anthem, and right out of the gate Peters sets up a dichotomy — there is the way things seem and then there’s the way things are. Peters juxtaposes the words pretend and proof as she loosely sketches the story of alcoholism, denial, and domestic violence. In this country song women are not adorned with cutoff jeans and tanlines, but rather the material evidence of gendered violence.
I was only eight years old that summer
And I always seemed to be in the way
So I took myself down to the fair in town
On Independence Day
We learn more about the narrator in the second stanza and the fact that she is a child comes into stark relief. The line I always seemed to be in the way is particularly poignant, truthful, and heartbreaking. Notice the phrasing in the line I took myself down to the fair in town. Not “I went down” but rather “I took myself.” The difference is so lonesome and truly independent. Here Peters also introduces the state by way of the fair in town / On Independence Day. The fair can be interpreted as a representation of society and the national impulse for symbolism surrounding the Fourth of July.
Well, word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
But mama was proud and she stood her ground
She knew she was on the losin’ end
In the second verse Peters makes it clear that the abuse our narrator and her mother are experiencing is not a secret — word gets around. Furthermore, she complicates her protagonist, writing, mama was proud and she stood her ground. This may seem like a simple line, but here she grants agency to the mother character and illustrates the complicated dynamics that can occur within the context of abuse.
Some folks whispered, some folks talked
But everybody looked the other way
And when time ran out there was no one about
On Independence Day
In the final phrases before the song’s chorus, Peters again calls out the status quo and complicity of the community. The line, everybody looked the other way, says everything the listener needs to know, and it should serve as a prompt to consider the injustices we claim to oppose while we look the other way in our own lives.
Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning
The opening stanza of the chorus has been misappropriated over the course of the song’s history. That McBride’s performance stirs strong emotion in the listener is undeniable, but as I see it, and as Peters herself has explained, this is not a song about national pride. The phrase, Let freedom ring clearly conjures rhetoric from the United States, but it is clear that the freedom being described is a woman’s liberation from patriarchal oppression and gendered violence. Freedom rings and the white dove sing[s]. I don’t have to tell you that the dove is universally recognized as a symbol of peace. Freedom in the case of this woman and her child means freedom from violence, but it is still a day of reckoning. With this reckoning Peters bridges the divide between the open secret of the woman’s see abuse and the very public and symbolic act of liberation that she will undertake later in the song.
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It’s Independence Day
In the next set of phrases Peters flips the script on the social order when she writes, Let the weak be strong / let the right be wrong. Things are not as they seem, and the object of gendered violence becomes her own subject with her own power and agency. Peters was describing radical empowerment unlike any of her peers in a time when the Third Wave of feminism was just beginning to crest.
In the next line Peters hits her listener with poetic Biblical allusion followed by a simple declaration. Roll the stone away is a reference to the New Testament story in which the stone is rolled away at Christ’s tomb and his resurrection is revealed to the women there. Peters pulls back the veil on the open secret in the small, small town and forces her listener and the larger society to see what has been there all along. Is it a stroke of brilliance that Peters references a Biblical story here in which the truth is revealed to women first? I like to think so. The following line, let the guilty pay just feels great doesn’t it? We know what this means and nobody sings it like Martina.
Well, she lit up the sky that fourth of July
By the time that the firemen come
They just put out the flames and took down some names
And sent me to the county home
As the song enters its final verse, Peters brings in some underlying themes that are seldom discussed with as much nuance and poignancy in any format. It becomes clear that the mother from the story has set fire to the family home and has ostensibly perished alongside her abuser. The brilliance of the line Well, she lit up the sky that fourth of July cannot be overstated. Here we have a callback to the song’s earlier dichotomy. Fireworks are a symbol for independence in the United States, and here our protagonist essentially says to the townspeople, “You take your symbols and I’ll take action.” This point is driven home further when Peters writes, They just put out the flames and took down some names /And sent me to the county home. I have the utmost respect for firefighters, but it is clear here that what Peters is describing is the bureaucratic and futile intervention of the state. Nobody helped this family before and nobody can help them now — least of whom the daughter. [Taking] down some names is such a passive act, and by the time the state arrives, the damage is already done — we are left to assume that our narrator enters the foster care system at this point.
Now I ain’t sayin’ it’s right or it’s wrong
But maybe it’s the only way
Talk about your revolution
It’s Independence Day
In the final lines of the last verse Peters calls her listener to an examination of conscience. The line I ain’t sayin’ it’s right or it’s wrong is perfect here because it demonstrates that the boundaries around right and wrong are blurred under oppression. After all, for women under patriarchy, “doing the right thing” often yields truly catastrophic results. And as the protagonist’s surrounding society demonstrates, the right thing is actually never done by bystanders who could save the woman and her child. In the case of this song, the mother doesn’t have the option to save both her and her child, so she saves her child and turns violence on the perpetrator of her abuse and we land at the line, maybe it’s the only way. In an ethical world that seeks an up or down decision on all things, in a highly moralistic culture, Peters forces the listener to meditate on ambiguity.
Then my absolute favorite line of ALL TIME, Talk about your revolution / It’s Independence Day. Who could ever in a million years deliver that as beautifully as Martina McBride? No one that’s who! But I digress. The narrator turns this whole story on the listener and the invisible townspeople (us now) who would rather distract themselves with symbols and anthems and folklore than confront what is right in front of them. The valor, the bravery, the courage, and capability all belong to the mother-daughter duo here.
You want to talk about a revolution? Talk about the revolutionary liberation of a child from the imminent threat of violence. While Peters leaves the listener wondering if the mother was intentionally killed in the course of her revenge or if it was a tragic accident, this much is clear — she was willing to risk her life to save an innocent. That sounds like an Independence Day theme if I’ve ever heard one.
Sean Della Croce is a singer-songwriter from Nashville,TN. Her debut album, Illuminations was released in 2019.
