Allen Shadow's "Miss America" captures the raw richness of the nation with powerful imagery that never lets up. The song drives us cross country with a sexual undercurrent that is palpable.

"Her white panties always only a twirl away on the silver screen," sings Shadow, who casts America as seductress in the composition.

His images are packed and loaded as he goes in for the kill by the end of the second verse: "her palaces of corn and artichoke queens/
her dumb fuck Brooklyn hallways/ stinging of pampers and malt liquor dreams."

And, he injects a healthy dose of irony in the song's bridge, which contains a personal account of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

"I was in a second-rate hotel in Eureka, California the day the Apollo 11 crew landed," said Shadow.  "I was with my own merry band of pranksters on a cross country trip in my 1948 Cadillac hearse.

"As we descended into the hotel lobby, Walter Cronkite's voice crackled from a TV, saying something like, 'What a great county...I just don't understand these hippies...' The TV was a table model that sat on a broken Sylvania console.

"Behind these proceedings, a broken American Indian lumbered in the hot California sun. What an ironic scene. Could have been out of an Antonioni film."

The "Miss America" video was produced as raw and real as the song itself, in contrast to most of the artist's projects.

"It was refreshing to sit in front of my Mac, guitar in hand," said the rocker, "and just have at it.

"I've spent the last twenty years in state-of-the-art studios with top musicians," so this was liberating. But it was also appropriate for the material."

The song will be released on a forthcoming album. Click here for the video and here to view the lyrics. See Shadow's blog post on the subject, too.