Songs of America - Celebrating U.S.A.'s 250th

 

     Since today the United States celebrates declaring independence from Great Britain 250 years ago I put together this collection. To start off, all rise for the National Anthem. Written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, it is traditionally played before baseball games. This version Jimi Hendrix adapted for his appearance at Woodstock. "The Liberty Bell March" belongs here for two reasons: it was written by John Philip Sousa, who has USA in his name and it's named after an American icon, as seen in National Treasure. Ironically, when most people hear it, they think of the British comedy troupe Monty Python. "Yankee Doodle Boy" was written by George M. Cohen in 1904. I chose the version from the 1942 movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy, where James Cagney played Cohen. "Saturday in the Park" is by a band named after an American city. Since a lot of Americans will be in parks today frying hot dogs and drinking Coca-Cola, this seemed appropriate. The song "America" was written by Paul Simon, although ironically, I have no songs by the band America. Chuck Berry sings about being glad to be back in the U. S. A., the Beach Boys love surfing in U. S. A. and Springsteen was born in the U. S. A. If you had a daughter born in the U.S.A., she would be an "American Girl" and grow up to be "American Woman". I chose Lenny Kravitz's version instead of the original by the Guess Who, since they were Canadian, still North America, but I stuck performers from the U.S.A.. Green Day sings about being an "American Idiot", Glenn Frey enumerates why he thinks it's "Better in the U.S.A" and we close with  song from the movie Team America. WARNING! it is not only filled with bravado but also extreme profanity. It is at end, so if that bothers you can skip the last song.

You can listen to it here: Songs of America - YouTube