The history of American patriotic songs offers a lesson about the different ways you can say you love your country.
Composers have celebrated endurance under fire ( “The Star-Spangled Banner” ) and invoked divine approval (“God Bless America”). While Toby Keith’s “Made in America” dares anyone to question American eminence, Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” and Curtis Mayfield’s “This Is My Country” highlight a long tradition of weaving in social protest, as if the advance to a “more perfect union” is only possible through acknowledging imperfection.
Patriotic music is also a story of cultural independence. Well into the 19th century, writers were adapting new lyrics to popular melodies — usually originating in England — as a way of ensuring the songs would be widely known.
“Nowadays, it would be like, ‘Here are my new lyrics that I just wrote, and you can sing them to this Beatles song,’” explains Loras John Schissel, a senior
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