(RNS) — Just before President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on Monday (Jan. 20), country singer Lee Greenwood will join the United States Marine Band for a familiar song—“God Bless the USA,” his 1984 hit that’s become a patriotic anthem and a MAGA theme song.
And most of the world will be watching.
This doesn’t bother Greenwood, who has performed at previous inaugurations.
“There are billions of people watching, but I don’t focus on that,” Greenwood told RNS. “I focus on the moment, and where we are at the Capital, and this moment in history.”
The Trump era has been a boom-time for the 81-year-old Greenwood, with the once and future president featuring “God Bless the USA” during his campaign rallies and endorsing a Bible edition inspired by Greenwood’s hit song—including one specifically printed for the inauguration.
In a video interview from his home in Franklin, Tennessee, Greenwood, who is a member of a Baptist megachurch in the Nashville suburbs, said his hit song is a reminder of the role that Christianity has long played in American life.
“I still think we’re a Christian nation,” he said. “We have to remember our roots. We came here not to escape religion. We came to bring faith with us.”
A self-described Reagan Republican who long performed on USO tours for the military — including a 1987 tour with Bob Hope — Greenwood credits the long success of “God Bless the USA” to its combination of patriotic themes and its connection to human struggles. The song begins by recognizing those struggles, said Greenwood.
“The first line of my song resonates with people who have been in the struggles of life,” he said. “‘If tomorrow all the things were gone, I’d worked for all my life.’ Are you kidding? We’ve all been there. We’ve all been down.”
During the interview, Greenwood mixed his politics in with his faith. A native Californian who was born in Los Angeles, Greenwood said he has great empathy for victims of wildfires there but blames the disaster on what he said were the failures of California public officials. While he’s proud that “God Bless the USA” has long been used at naturalization ceremonies for new American citizens, he’s critical of the country’s current immigration policies.
“I think we should build the wall,” he said. “I think we know that we need to know who’s coming in the country. We have to be a sovereign nation.”