Politics are so noxious and tense right now that it's more noticeable when they don't infiltrate pop culture than when they do. It's big news if "Saturday Night Live" fails to provoke a presidential Twitter tantrum, or if an awards show does not produce a defiant, viral acceptance speech.

The Super Bowl, where sports, entertainment and capitalism collide most spectacularly, did not disappoint on this front, at least when it came to headline-grabbing ads. Unexpectedly subdued, however, was the halftime performance by Lady Gaga, to the extent that one can describe 15 minutes of pyrotechnics and flamboyantly choreographed dance anthems as such.

Her most overt statement came via "Born This Way," an anthem of LGBT empowerment, performed for an audience at NRG Stadium in Houston that included Vice President (and noted non-ally on gay issues) Mike Pence. But judging by the nonpartisan approval it received, Gaga's show was otherwise so apolitical that the neutrality itself was inevitably its own political stance when viewers on either side sat with clenched buttocks anticipating some direct attack on President Trump.

She did, however, tip her hand in the prerecorded (it turns out) introduction from the top of the arena, whose subtext might have slipped by if you'd blinked. Before descending to the stage, as red, white and blue-lit drones formed an American flag behind her, Gaga sang the opening words of "God Bless America" then segued into a few bars of "This Land Is Your Land." Aha, now we're getting somewhere.

"God Bless America" was composed by famed Tin Pan Alley songwriter Irving Berlin and popularized by the singer Kate Smith in the late 1930s. Woody Guthrie, the prototypical folk troubadour, was traveling the United States as a nomad while "God Bless America" saturated radio airwaves. He hated how starkly the song's simplistic tribute to the country's scenic beauty contrasted with the Depression-era suffering he'd witnessed on his journeys, so he wrote "This Land Is Your Land" as a sarcastic retort.

Like countless others, I was taught "This Land Is Your Land" in elementary school, which is weird for two reasons. First, I'm almost 100 percent sure my school was built on land once occupied by Native Americans, so singing the refrain of This land was made for you and me in a room full of predominantly white kids is a memory that not has aged well. Second, to take the song at face value is to miss Guthries point.

He originally titled the song God Blessed America For Me, and it contained politically pointed verses that did not appear on the version that became popular on the radio in the 1940s or the initial wave of big-name covers during the 1960s folk revival. In lyrics unearthed decades later, Guthrie wrote of seeing my people in the shadow of a church steeple. As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.

Another omitted verse resonates unexpectedly almost 80 years after Guthrie wrote it: There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn't say nothing; This land was made for you and me.

The pairing of those two historically entwined songs is significant. Each long ago was adopted as an alternate national anthem by a side of an American schism that seems likely to continue widening until we tear ourselves in half -- one unabashedly patriotic, the other fiercely critical.

Lady Gaga is an accomplished interpreter of the Great American Songbook and surely knew what she was doing. The gesture might have been less forceful than Beyonces appearance last year backed by dancers dressed like Black Panthers. But with political discourse now an exercise in chaos, nihilism and volume, theres something to be said for subtlety.

Although, depending on ones politics, Gagas route the stage might offer a more apt metaphor for how a lot of us feel like handling this moment in history: solemnly quoting the Pledge of Allegiance, then flinging ourselves from the roof of a stadium.

Troy Reimink is a west Michigan writer and musician.

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Troy Reimink: 'This Land Is Your Land' doesn't mean what most people think - Traverse City Record Eagle