Original Broadway Cast of "Hair" – "Don't Put It Down" (1968)

’Cause I look different

You think I’m subversive

Crazy for the blue, white, and red!

2 or 3 lines is as patriotic as all get-out.  Stick 2 or 3 lines with a knife, and I bleed blue, white, and red!

2 or 3 lines is also strictly nonpartisan.  While the offices of 2 or 3 lines are located in Maryland – a deeply blue state – 2 or 3 lines is not deep blue.  Neither is it deep red.  

2 or 3 lines is, and always will be deep white!

(Hmmmm . . . that doesn’t sound quite right.)

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While 2 or 3 lines is nonpartisan, it does address political issues on occasion – always giving due respect to those who may have a differing point of view . . . regardless of how idiotic that point of view may be:

Today, we’re going to touch on a very controversial political topic – voter fraud.

Republicans have alleged that voter fraud in the recent election was widespread, and enabled the Democrats to unfairly steal that election.  

Democrats deny that charge, and assert that they stole the election fair and square.  

Far be it for little ol’ 2 or 3 lines to opine on which side is right and which side is wrong – I’ll gladly leave that determination to the courts (whose decisions are never influenced by politics).

But 2 or 3 lines did have some first-hand experience with voter fraud last month, and perhaps that experience will help illuminate the larger controversy.

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Sometime in September, the great state of Maryland – whose official state motto is Fatti maschii, parole femine (“Manly deeds, womanly words”) – mailed three 2020 election ballots to my home.

One of those ballots was addressed to me, one to my wife, and one to our youngest child.

That child moved out of our house and into an apartment in a different state almost two years ago, so my understanding is that it would have been voter fraud for him to vote in the Maryland election.  

I could have filled in his ballot myself, signed his name to it, and deposited it in one of the ballot boxes that were located on just about every street corner in my county.  

But I chose instead to prevent any possible voter fraud with regard to that ballot by simply tearing it up and throwing it away.    

As for the ballot addressed to my wife, I likewise could have filled it in myself, forged her signature, and dropped it into a ballot box.  (Given that she usually votes the wrong way, such an action on my part would have been in the public interest.)  

But I am NOT that kind of person, and I didn’t give in to temptation and vote my wife’s ballot for her.

Instead, I tore it up and threw it in the trash along with my child’s ballot, thereby preventing any possible voter fraud.  

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Do you ever wonder why it always has to be “the red, white, and blue”?

Why can’t it be “the red, blue, and white”?  

Or “the white, red, and blue”? 

Or “the blue, red, and white”?

Gerome Ragni and James Rado included all those alternative orderings of the color of the American flag in their lyrics for “Don’t Put It Down,” a song from act one of the 1968 Broadway musical, Hair.

But none of them ever caught on – “the red, white, and blue” is how tout le monde refers to our flag. 

Click here to listen to the original Broadway cast recording of “Don’t Put It Down.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: