American Flag on the Moon

Album: Moonshine In The Trunk (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Paisley invites Americans to dream big again on this song, because, "I mean, after all, there's an American flag on the moon." The track was inspired by the singer's five-year-old son, Jasper. Paisley explained to Billboard magazine: "He looked up at the sky - after he heard about the moon landing - and squinted and said, 'I think I can see the flag.' My wife thought that was the cutest thing ever. What a great thing for the kid to say!"

    "It stuck with me for a while and I started thinking about watching the news and all the negatives," Paisley continued. "The naysayers saying, 'We're going down the tubes,' and all of that as a country and thought to myself, 'Why can't we just be proud to be Americans?' In spite of everything that's wrong, let's be proud of what we've done so far, and maybe that's the trick to figuring out the future is looking back a little bit."

    "The phrase just caught my attention," he concluded. "After all, there's an American flag on the moon. To me, that's mind-blowing to think about that that thing is sitting up there 45 years."
  • The song was leaked on August 16, 2014 when Paisley sent the tune to NASA astronaut Reid Weisman on the International Space Station, while standing at Florida's Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39B.
  • Brad Paisley is accompanied on the song by Mrs. King's Class At Montessori Academy's Children's Chorus.

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