Songfacts®:

• While helping his Boss in the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen, put together the Born in the U.S.A. album, Steven Van Zandt (Little Steven) was also working on his album Voice of America with his band Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul. Steven's album arrived in May 1984, Springsteen's a month later.
  
  "I Am a Patriot" is a very political song from Little Steven, taking aim at President Ronald Reagan's rhetoric as he was pushing (successfully) for re-election. Reagan made "patriotism" a centerpiece of his message, sometimes skewing it to mean thoughtless flag-waving, even invoking Springsteen's songs when Bruce opposed Reagan's policies. Little Steven wanted to make it clear that opposition to his government did not make him disloyal, and he's still a patriot. He recalled to Mojo magazine in 2017:
  
  "It was one of the most difficult songs I've ever written, because I knew my political stuff was gonna be very critical of the American government, and I wanted to make it clear that I was being critical from a patriotic point of view: (I'm) very proud of the ideals that our founding fathers had in mind when I created the country, but the fact is (the US is) still very much a work in progress, and very often goes off the rails. In those instances, it's up to the true patriots to say, Wait a minute, the government isn't always right, we need to be vigilant about keeping our ideals intact. So I knew it was the most important song I was ever gonna write, and I stared at that title for at least a year - I just couldn't work I just couldn't figure out how to make it work, but finally I did
  
  When you're trying to write songs that are very simple, with no poetry or metaphor to hide behind, you have to find a way to do that without being obnoxious or boring or cornball... reggae helped!"
• Jackson Browne covered the song on his 1989 World in Motion album and also frequently performed it in his concerts. In 2004, Browne and Van Zandt sang the song together during the last of the Vote for Change shows.
  
  Browne talked about the song in Rolling Stone:
  
  "Some things need to be said plainly, and Little Steven's song does that brilliantly. His album wasn't widely heard. I thought it deserved more. I started doing his song because I didn't have one about loving my country.
  
  Part of why the song has gone over so well is the way my band has played it. We put a reggae feel in the bottom. But there is also the idea in it: We're all Americans and grateful to be in this country, this open society where it is possible to do great art and music. Gratitude is a great feeling, a great way to end a concert. I'm pretty sure people think I wrote this song. In the end, it doesn't matter as much as the fact that we all feel it when it's being sung."
• Pearl Jam also have played the song in concerts. Their version can be heard on the bootleg 1998-09-19: Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, USA.