Americans: when and how did you learn all the very American songs? Other countries: Do you have many songs that are patriotic?
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JLeslie (
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May 26th, 2014
I went to see the Florida Orchestra last night in a Stars and Stripes tribute and it was awesome! The quality of the orchestra surpassed my expectations. They played all that you would expect, Star Spangled Banner, My Country Tis Of Thee, God Bless America, Yankee Doodle Dandee, the songs of the various branches of the military, and so on. At one point the audience was asked to sing along. My husband asked while I was singing (everyone was singing) “how do you know all of these?” My reply was, “elementary school.” I think most of them I did learn in elementary, some others maybe just from my parents or hearing them play somewhere else.
As a side comment the concert also included some scores from Oklahoma and a few songs from around war time that were not patriotic songs so to speak. Also, one of the Olympic themes. We thoroughly enjoyed it.
To clarify, my husband was not born and raised in America, although he did spend a couple of years in high school in America. I don’t know if his country has songs like that or not.
If you are not American does your country have a bunch of patriotic songs about the country or from war time?
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41 Answers
I learned the Star Spangled Banner from sports games. The others you metioned, I learned in grade school. I don’t know any war songs. Wasn’t born in the right decade.
@Mimishu1995 Great idea to link the song, I’ll do some later for America when I return, I have to log off right now. I have to say, I found it interesting that yours is so bloody. Most American songs are very up beat (the beat of the song and the words) from songs of freedom, the beauty of the country, and our military theme songs. Our national Anthem not as much as some others admittedly.
Maybe some Americans will link some before I get back.
Anything repeated to the extent of the tunes you mentioned is going to be picked up by everyone automatically. And it will be done very early in childhood for most of them, when we are best at soaking them up. Just think about nursery rhymes.
I can’t find any quickly, but probably from old Bugs Bunny cartoons.
At school (and of course when the broadcast day was over), we had O Canada. We also had to stand for God Save the Queen in elementary school; I don’t think they do that anymore, though maybe someone can correct me on that.
Unofficially, of course, there are too many songs that are very Canadian to list, and from every part of this wide country.
I used to hear them more when I was little, when my grandparents were around. That’s how I know them, from that era (the late 60’s, the 70’s). Now I hardly hear them except in nostalgic places like Disney World or old movies, which I never watch.
There are what came to mind first. I know the lyrics to at least the first verse of all of these.
Music Class, Elementary School:
Star-spangled Banner
God Bless America
God Bless the USA
The Caisson Song
U.S. Air Force Song
Semper Paratus
Anchors Aweigh
Marines’ Hymn
Concert Band, High School:
Stars and Stripes Forever
Many other John Philip Sousa stuff
Church:
This Is My Song
America, the Beautiful
America
My Electric Piano:
Battle Hymn of the Republic
@JLeslie Do you know cracked.com? That song is listed as #1 most violent national athem :p But the again, it was written during the peak of the French invasion, so how am I to complain?
The war songs are even bloodier than that song. Many war songs are composed during the Vietnam war, so it’s not so surprising.
I know a lot of war songs. If you don’t mind something bloody, I’ll post more.
Grade school music/singing classes, listening to records and radio, watching TV programs like “The 20th Century.”
I learned them in elementary school and from singing on family car rides.
Childhood brainwashing of course.
During the brainwashing they employed at grade school.
I later found out that “My country Tis of Thee” is a ripoff from a British song, “God Save the Queen.”
I also learned that lining us up to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” was a ripoff of a nazi tactic used to brainwash their little Hitler Youth gang of thugs.
We had music along with the math, reading, spelling and social studies in elementary school. Also, every morning after reciting the pledge of allegiance we would sing a song. Some times it was the national anthem, other times it was God Bless America, America the Beautiful, She’s a Grand Old Flag, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, This is My Country, or Roll on Colombia.
Of course there were parades on the 4th of July, Memorial Day and Labor Day, and movies so we learned a lot of the marches by John Philip Sousa like Stars and Stripes Forever. Also the school bands would play these songs.
My parents had an extensive record collection, mostly folk, musicals and classical, and my mother, especially, would sing to us. So we learned I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad, Who’s That Doggy in the Window, Lavender Blue, Oklahoma, Appalachian Spring and Rhapsody in Blue.
It was definitely elementary school for me.
I knew lots of them at a very young age and I’m not sure exactly how. There is video of 4 year old me marching around on my driveway singing Grand Old Flag. I forgot a lot of them soon after, but relearned when I was in third grade. That was when 9/11 happened. My school began playing a patriotic song over the announcements every morning for about a month, along with the pledge of allegiance (which had always been played). Learned lots and lots of patriotic songs at that time…
The only nationalist song that I know of, is the anthem, and of that I only know the first 2 lines.
Elementary school, as well.
We used to do the Pledge, then sing both “Let Freedom Ring” and “The Star Spangled Banner”. Various patriotic assemblies offered ample opportunity to learn the rest of ‘em.
My son’s exposure is mostly from Warner Bros. cartoons.
The song “Let Freedom Ring” says “My country, ‘tis of the (not ‘thee’) sweet land of liberty”. It’s a single sentence in two lines. Personal peeve, just a little bit.
^ I didn’t know that, interesting!
Similarly, I have a pet peeve with the way people say the pledge. The grammatical structure means it ought to be said like:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation…
But most people say it like:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation…
Seconded. Wholly. Among my myriad other problems with the Pledge, of course.
It should be punctuated thusly:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
@Seek, I never knew that about “Let Freedom Ring.”
@Seek Actually, I believe ”‘tis of thee” is correct. “Of thee I sing,” remember?
It’s of you, sweet land of liberty, of you I sing.
@Seek @dappled_leaves beat me to it…the song is called “America”. But the syntax of the lyrics still sound bizarre to me.
For Germany, I can only think of one – the national anthem. I hardly know the lyrics, I never sing along, and I am going to clear my browser history now. Ungh.
@seek It is thee. This thread reminded me that the song is called America, or maybe it is actually known under both names, that I am not sure of.
@Mimishu1995 I can understand why the songs are bloody, but I find it a little sad.are there no songs that are uplifting and happy about the country?
Below are some patriotic songs:
Grand Old Flag
Medley of the armed forces songs
America
National Athem
God Bless America
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Over There
Yes, but my computer keeps closing the page. I’m trying to finish before I can’t edit anymore.
Crap. I had three more of them and it zapped on me. I have to do it on a laptop later.
In that case, I have a new peeve: American patriotic songs are so predictably redundant that any attempts to defend them prove futile.
I learned many of the University football fight songs at sleep-away camp.
On, Wisconsin.
Michigan’s The Victors
A Ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech
Notre Dame Victory March
(Cornell U. Alma Mater)
Because we don’t have a queen to save, I suppose.
She ain’t my Queen, not my God either, fuck em both…sideways
It’s easy to understand how “God save the King” had to be quickly revised, once the American Revolution was up and running! But I’m actually old enough to remember when the words “under God” were added to the pledge of allegiance. It was a direct response to the great boogabu of “Godless socialism”
@ucme Maybe because it was written by a Jewish man, whom I assume believed in God, and America was a place for religious freedom for the Jewish people. I’m just guessing, I really don’t know exactly what inspired him. It was a very personal song. He wrote, “God Bless America, land that I love. He used I. He had immigrated from Russia in the late 1800’s, and Russia sucked for the Jews. The song came out around WWII, I’m not exactly sure what year.
I do know when it was first released it was met with some people not liking that God was injected Ino a patriotic song because of separation of church and state. God is in more than one though.
“Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918 while serving the U.S. Army.., but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside.
Music critic Jody Rosen says that a 1906 Jewish dialect novelty song, “When Mose with His Nose Leads the Band,” contains a six-note fragment that is “instantly recognizable as the opening strains of “God Bless America””... an example of Berlin’s “habit of interpolating bits of half-remembered songs into his own numbers.” Berlin, born Israel Baline, had himself written several Jewish-themed novelty tunes.
In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and a first-generation European immigrant, felt it was time to revive it as a “peace song,” and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith…”
Source
@gailcalled I like that so many of our patriotic songs are about peace and beauty. I think it sets a tone for the country when we learn these songs as young children. As much as the slippery slop of nationalism can make me nervous, I can’t see anything wrong in appreciating ones country for many of the wonderful things it provides.
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