'tis a gift to be simple

my ex wife and i share a passion for all things Carter Family, and to some extant, other players on the "folksy" realm...God bless Harry Smith and Alan Lomax... well, a very strange group of Quaker off-shoots, the Shakers, have themselves a little theme song, known as "Tis A Gift To Be Simple", or "Simple Gifts" with some very dada lyrics, to wit:

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free.
'Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves
in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend
we shall not be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Till by turning,
turning we come round right.

now, by co-incidence, our daughter sang and danced to that tune at her public school's "holiday" show, and that just made me all misty-eyed and proud...

i was reminded that the tune was lifted by Copeland for his "Americana" suite or somesuch, so often, the Shaker bit is used in Western movies to depict a simple folk or majestic sweep of prairie or mountains...

well, some wise ass also used that folksy Americana bit during Bush II's pre-inaugural fete, to be played as Georgie walked up to the podium... my thought: were they aware of those lyrics, or were they just trying to cue the down-home American bit?