While most Americans were busy shoving hot dogs down their throats and making grievous errors of judgment with fireworks, the scientists and engineers at NASA spent yesterday navigating a satellite into Jupiter’s orbit from 540 million miles away. This was the fourth of six parts in a 78 month mission that began on August 5, 2011, when the Juno probe was launched into space.
To commemorate the momentous event, NASA and Apple invited the band Weezer to contribute a song to the celebrations. Weezer not only accepted the proposal, but really put their hearts into the project, delivering an explicative-laden piece of sonic patriotism that will surely become a mainstay of edgier community firework displays:
“We were on tour abroad, and it got me thinking a lot about America, which lead to me write ‘I Love The U.S.A,’” frontman Rivers Cuomo explained on Facebook. “When Apple and NASA asked us to be involved with Juno’s historic landing on July 4th, this song seemed like the perfect fit.”
“I Love The U.S.A” is available as a digital download through iTunes. Cuomo has also posted a mildly baffling annotated copy of the lyrics to Genius.