It’s Independence Day, time to reflect on all the great things about this country that bring us together despite our differences. Warts and all, America is a great place to be.
Willie Nelson “America The Beautiful” (comp. Katharine Lee Bates)
It would be great if this became our national anthem instead of the militaristic “Star Spangled Banner.” It’ll never happen, of course, but we can still dream of singing a song about the glories of the USA before baseball games.
Richard Cheese “American Idiot” (Green Day)
It’s a happy, loungy version of Green Day’s indictment of America’s ills. I love the way he starts singing “Tequila” at the end.
Brecht Fist and Amy Rica “Breakfast In America” (Supertramp)
I’ve never been a huge Supertramp fan, but I’ve always liked this song about a foreigner’s perceptions of America. This version has an accordion, which I always like. Stick around for the frantic ending.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass “America” (from West Side Story)
Every Herb Alpert song is charmingly cheesy, including this song about how the US is better than Puerto Rico. People sometimes forget that the original stage version of the song included lyrics that disparaged Puerto Rico, while the movie version included lyrics about American racism and the difficulties of Puerto Rican immigrants.
Yes “America” (Simon And Garfunkle)
Paul Simon’s folk tune about a cross-country bus ride gets the bloated prog-rock treatment.
“It would be great if this became our national anthem instead of the militaristic “Star Spangled Banner.” ”
Love the site, love the selections, but GAWD, that statement is a load of bullshit. Our national anthem is representative of America’s struggle to be a beacon of hope against tyranny. Have we always lived up to that promise? Maybe not, but the Star Spangled Banner always reminds me that there are Americans who try.
Also, as a Veteran, I kind of find your equating military = bad a bit offensive.
And if you REALLY want a cover of a song about feel-good-won’t-hurt-my-liberal-sensitivities, try “This Land is Your Land”, by Arlo Guthrie. Plenty of good covers of that, too.
I’m reluctant to take over the comments with a discussion of politics and patriotism, but I can’t resist pointing out that not wanting a militaristic anthem does NOT mean being anti-military. In fact, Dom seems to have forgotten the whole text of America The Beautiful – a song which is EQUALLY about America’s ongoing struggle against tyranny, and is decidedly NOT anti-militaristic. See the third verse:
O beautiful for heroes prov’d
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.
But what makes A the B better suited as an anthem, I think, is that a) it is more singable – a vital yet oddly underrated criteria – with a better rise and fall of tune and temper to match its sentiment, and b) it celebrates military might [in service to good and against tyranny] while simultaneously offering itself as a roadmap of history and determination, covering much more broadly the cornucopia of things which make us us, from the transformation of the land into law in the name of freedom to the majesty of that land as a natural resource.
In other words, where the SSB is narrow in its approach – it is indeed militaristic, which is to say it frames its view of America EXCLUSIVELY in a military context, which is absolutely too narrow to contain all the things we might want to celebrate when we need an anthem – like all great anthems, A the B is about who we ARE – as a people, as a nation, as an ideal, and as a promise – in a much broader and more inclusive manner, which includes military might, but does not stop there, nor forget the rest of what anthems need to be. Neither liberal nor conservative, it is more appropriate for a nation that is by its very definition dialogically both, and – I hope – always will be.
WOODY Guthrie, by the way.
Yeah, I have a hard time keeping the Guthries straight. Which is silly, really.
BTW, It’s Art Garfunkel not Garfunkle.