Commenter tiob and I were emailing the other night about what song in America really captures America. Obviously, "The Star Spangled Banner" and "My Country 'tis Of Thee" are very American, but we're looking for something other than an essentially patriotic song...something other than the obvious......the kind of song you'd find Americans unable to resist breaking into song with if they were in Europe, for example, and heard a band suddenly bursting into this tune.Tiob wrote me:
I was watching clips of Andre Rieu play some traditional folk songs. When he played Hava Nagila, it made me wish I were Jewish. When he played Kalinka, it made me wish I were Russian. When the crowd was singing along to famous excerpts from Verdi operas, it made wish I were Italian.
So, if you weren't American, listening to what song would make you wish that you were? A song that makes you think of America right away. Not necessarily overtly patriotic, but something you'd consider part of the American heritage.
What song is immediately identifies with America for YOU? Any suggestions?
z (and tiob!)
42 comments:
I can only think of Yankee Doodle which would not particularly inspire me for America when in a foreign land, and America the Beautiful which would, but is in the category of patriotic.
Yankee Doodle was my first thought also as instantly recognized as American. I also like the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
God Bless the USA, Lee Greenwood
Anchors Aweigh brings a tear to my eye but it's not about America necessarily
"The House I Live In (That's America To Me)":
What is America to me?
A name, a map, or a flag I see;
A certain word, democracy.
What is America to me?
The house I live in,
A plot of earth, a street,
The grocer and the butcher,
Or the people that I meet;
The children in the playground,
The faces that I see,
All races and religions,
That's America to me.
The place I work in,
The worker by my side,
The little town or city
Where my people lived and died.
The howdy and the handshake,
The air and feeling free,
And the right to speak my mind out,
That's America to me.
[...]
The words of old Abe Lincoln,
Of Jefferson and Paine,
Of Washington and Jackson
And the tasks that still remain;
The little bridge at Concord,
Where Freedom's fight began,
Our Gettysburg and Midway
And the story of Bataan.
The house I live in,
The goodness everywhere,
A land of wealth and beauty,
With enough for all to share;
A house that we call Freedom,
A home of Liberty,
And it belongs to fighting people
That's America to me.
The rest HERE.
I cry every time.
Boondocks works for me. Dixie, too. Copeland's Simple Gifts, a variation on a Quaker Hymn, or his Hoedown from Rodeo? I give up. None would bring an American to his feet like the Le Mersaillaise.
...some Gershwin, either Rhapsody in Blue or an American in Paris? Anything but ducky's favorite...
Charlie Poole - White House Blues
Buell Kazee - The Waggoner's Lad
Bently Boys - Down on Penny's Farm
Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles - Been on the Job Too Long
Jim Jackson - Dog Blue
Memphis Jug Band - K.C. Moan
Blind Lemon Jefferson - See that My Grave Is Kept Clean
Dock Boggs - Country Blues
The Carter Family - Single Girl, Married Girl
Henry "Ragtime" Thomas - Fishing Blues
Bascom Lamar Lunsford - Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground
The Carter Family - Little Moses
Williamson Brothers and Curry - John Henry
Burnett & Rutherford - Titanic
Blind Willie Johnson - John the Revelator ...
It's infinite. Damn, we built a great folk music. One thing this country did absolutely spot on right.
...course I didn't even get to Woody.
Good choice Farmer, anything but brain dead Andre Rieu.
Cat doesn't swing.
God bless the USA by Lee Greenwood
What song is immediately identifies with America for YOU?
"Hair of the Dog" by Nazereth :P
Stephen Foster:
1. Old Folks at Home
2. I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair
3. Beautiful Dreamer
4. Old Black Joe
Edward MacDowell:
Woodland Sketches:
To a Wild Rose
Uncle Remus
An Old Trysting Place
From a Wigwam
Victor Herbert:
1. Ah Sweet Mystery of Life!
2. Toyland
Jerome Kern:
1. Old Man River
2. You Are Love
Rogers & Hart:
1. My Funny Valentine
Rogers & Hammerstein:
1. That Was A Real Nice Clambake
2. When The Children Are Asleep
3. Oklahoma
4. I'm Just a Girl Who Cain't Say No
5. When you Walk Through A Storm
Leroy Anderson
1. Sleigh Ride
2. The Syncopated Clock
Willy Nelson:
1. Georgia On My Mind
Aaron Copland:
1. Appalachian Spring
2. Rodeo
Charles Ives:
1. The Fourth of July (Tone Poem)
George Gershwin:
1. Concerto in F (piano and orchestra)
2. Porgy and Bess (Opera)
Douglas Moore:
1. The Ballad of Baby Doe (Opera)
Samuel Barber:
1. Adagio for Strings
Peggy Lee:
1. Fever
ARTISTS:
Bricktop
Alberta Hunter
Billy Holiday
Mabel Mercer
Bobby Short
Ella Fitzgerald
Sarah Vaughan
Margaret Whiting
Kate Smith
Nat King Cole
Mel Tormé
Eileen Farrell
~ FreeThinke
erratum - Shaker, not Quaker, above.
Another toe tapper or anything from the hills.
I guess most of our American music is "regional". If you were a teenager from the East Bay in the 70's, you couldn't help but love this.
"Early in the morning, sometimes late at night
Sometimes I get the feeling that everything's alright
Early in the evening, sometimes in the day
Sometimes I get the feeling everything's okay
Name me a song that everybody knows
And I'll bet you it belongs to Acuff-Rose
--------- Uncle Tupelo
Neil Diamond's "America"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPGYbU5uB80
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by the Andrews Sisters!
This is all such good music, though.
Jazz, swing, folk, bluegrass music. I love it all.
- God Bless the USA, Greenwood;
- Take Five, Dave Brubeck
Yeah, I know, odd dichotomy.
BZ
Toby Keith...Red White & Blue!!
On a different note, the phone Al Gore who should be prosecute, is cancelling his trip to Copenhagen. I guess he's too worried about the carbon emission of the plane now!
Link
For me, it's got to be the National Anthem, but I prefer it sung in the more traditional way and not oversung like so many performers do nowadays.
The way my daughter sang it at a recent football game at her school. She did a bang up job :-)
What a great bunch of songs...Thanks for this.
I personally think you can't beat Yankee Doodle or Dixie...
and love the idea of God Bless the USA by Greenwood, too (you should have seen my preschoolers sing it last Spring, you'd have cried, too)
Anchors Aweigh is a good one, Elbro.
FreeThinker..great list.
Oh,doorbell..I'[ll be back!!
God Bless the USA, Lee Greenwood
God Bless America for certain.
I always thought the City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie was America. It's a journey through the midwest night and celebrates/mourns the passing of the railroad, which built the country.
The lyrics are here:
http://www.lyrics007.com/Arlo%20Guthrie%20Lyrics/City%20Of%20New%20Orleans%20Lyrics.html
God Bless the USA by Greenwood and American Soldier by Toby Keith!
Nice to see Ducky has expanded his musical tastes beyond Massachussett's Bee Gees and New Kids on the Block to include Uncle Tupelo from the St. Louis area. I wonder if he likes Son Volt and Wilco....
My daughter heard Chuck and I talking about this and she has her opinion. She said America the Beautiful first, and had that "Duh, of course" look on her face. Yankee Doodle Dandy, Battle Hymn, and I'm sorry but I really do love This Land is Your Land. I sang it in choir when I was a kid:)
God Bless the USA, I agree.
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Grand Old Flag
America the Beautiful
Battle Hymn
There are too many to pick just one. I love them all.
Pris
Battle Hymn of the Republic is my all time favorite hymn.
I particularly like the Christian metal band Stryper's version of it. Michael Sweet has some pipes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1grX1gW61w4
If I found out that "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "God Bless America" were sung without me, I'd feel left out.
Is it me, or do these American anthems have more of a tone or reverence. I picture these songs being sung in a church or in a concert of patriotic music. Not so much in a tavern or at a soccer game as La Mersailles. And the American songs are sung without dancing and clapping. Am I right, or is that just my perception?
Seems like Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" should be mentioned. That one does make you want to clap along.
I'm also thinking "From the Halls of Monctezuma...."
I'm also thinking I should know more of the lyrics to these songs.
tiob
Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans"?
tiob
hail to the chief
I had forgotten all about "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
tiob
tiob - [From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land and on the sea
First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, we are proud to hold the title, The United States Marines.]
I'm sorry to say it's been so long since I sang it I hope it's correct. This is from memory a long time ago.
Where's Mustang when we need him? I'm sure he'll correct me if I've erred.
Then there's The Caison Song - The Army
Or, Off we go into the Wild Blue Yonder, The Army Air Corps (now the Air Force)
Anchors Aweigh - Navy
Grand Old Flag - [It's a grand old flag, it's a high flying flag
and forever in peace shall she wave
She's the emblem of the land I love, the home of the free and the brave.
Every heart beats true under red white and blue and with never a boast or brag
should auld acquaintance be forgot
keep your eye on the grand old flag]
These were among the first songs I learned as a small child. It's been fun jogging my memory. Like I said I hope I have not made too many mistakes.
Brings back lots of memories as my family sang these wonderful songs while my Grandmothr played them on the piano.
Pris
I can't believe I forgot When Johnny Comes Marching Home and Your a Grand Old Flag. I love those too!
I like Woodie Guthrie.
No Guthrie = No Nugent
Scott Joplin
Art Tatum
Glenn Miller
Tommy Dorsey
Jimmy Dorsey
Benny Goodman
Bix Beiderbeck
Les Brown and His band of Renown
The Modernaires
Spike Jones
Louis Armstrong
The Andrews Sisters (thanks, Jen)
Frank Sinatra
Bing Crosby
Tony Bennett
Judy Garland (The boy Next Door)
Helen O'Connell (Tangerine)
Hoagy Carmichael
Betty Hutton (His Rocking Horse Rode Away)
42nd Street
Tea for Two
California, Here I Come
Isn't it a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain?
Cement Mixer Potty Potty!
Ghost Riders in the Sky
She's too fat for Me
Moonlight In Vermont
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Dvorak: The New World Symphony
~ FreeThinke
How could we forget Somewhere Over the Rainbow? If I Only Had a Brain? -- a Heart? -- some Nerve? The Merry Old Land of OZ?
It Might as Well be Spring
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
White Christmas
Silver Bells
Winter Wonderland
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
~ FreeThinke
Try to Remember (The Fantasticks)
Deep Purple (Peter de Rose)
My Ship (Kurt Weill)
Guys and Dolls (Frank Loesser))
1. If I Were a Bell
2. Luck Be a Lady Tonight
3. Adelaide's Lament
4. Bushel and a Peck
5. Take Back Your Mink
West Side Story (Bernstein)
Wonderful Town (Bernstein, Comden & Greene)
I guess my point in listing so many songs, artists and musical works of all kinds is that a piece of music doesn't have to be specifically about America to be American.
There is a spirit -- a character -- that is unique to what we USED to be that comes out in all the varied selections I mentioned. Most every popular song, musical comedy, Jazz, and certain symphonic and operatic works that arrived before the Sick-sties were infused with this special character.
The Sick-sties destroyed all that and transformed the popular culture into something coarse, rude, vulgar, rebellious, angry, spiteful, cynical and perennially childish.
Before the Sick-sties our music was romantic, sentimental, whimsical, funny, naive, often silly, often energizing, always reassuring and often child-like, but it was never insulting, undermining, brutal or deliberately destructive.
Remember the 1952 movie Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford and Sarah Churchill?
The zany song and dance number "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You, When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?" is quintessentially American. It makes you want to get up out of your seat and and start moving while laughing your head off, yet it's also a demonstration of tremendous skill, talent, and expert training.
That's just one example among hundreds.
Cole Porter's Anything Goes and You're the Top are other good examples. We used to have a unique way of blending clownishness with romance that made everyone smile and feel oh-so-much better when they left the theater.
The timbre of our benighted times is like a perpetual invitation to commit suicide.
Enjoy the great treasury that is our past. Much of it is preserved in silly old movies for which I thank God every day.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
~ FreeThinke
I*'d like to pick the Best Top Five here, but they're all such good examples!
FT, some of yours aren't quite those most Americans would know the words to, but they're good!!
xxx
And if you want pure patriotism in a song, remember Hail Columbia. It's been around a very long time, but isn't much in fashion now:
Hail, Columbia, happy land!
Hail, ye heroes heaven-born band,
Who fought and bled for freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled for freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was done
Enjoy the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast
Ever mindful what it cost
Ever grateful for the prize
Let it's altar reach the skies.
Firm, united let us be
Rallying 'tound our Liberty
As a band of brothers joined
Peace and safety we shall find.
~ Joseph Hopkinson (19th century)
We used to sing that in grade school. You have to remember, dear Z, that I am almost old enough to be a living antique. And I'm very happy to remain out-of-date for the foreseeable future. ;-)
Here's an irreverent version of an old seasonal greeting you won't find on any Hallmark card:
Have one hell
Of a good Noel!
~ FreeThinke
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