"Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing,
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning..."
Considered the "Signature Song" of beautiful country music recording artist
Martina McBride, "Independence Day" tells the sad story of a little girl
whose home life is shattered by alcoholism and domestic violence.
In an act of desperation, her long victimized mother burns down the
family home, presumably with herself and her drunken husband inside,
after which the little girl left behind is sent to a county home.
Released on May 2, 1994 as the third single from her album, "The Way That I Am"
the lyrics of this song are described as having a double meaning, in that the girl's
mother finally gains her "independence" from her abusive father on
the 4th of July-America's Independence Day.
What makes this song especially thought provoking is that it mentions the
residents of the small town where the girl and her parents lived knew that
her father was a dangerous man and was abusing her mother and most
likely his daughter too, but these neighbors chose to look the other way.
"Independence Day" won the Country Music Association Award
for Song of the Year at the 1995 CMA Awards.
In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the song at Number #45 on its list of
the 200 Greatest Country Songs of all time.
(1994)
Martina McBride
(Uploaded February 1, 2016)
