posted
America the Beautiful is the first one that came to my mind...Shenandoah,This Land Is Your Land,God Bless The USA....just to name a few.
The link I posted above has a lot of songs that are "americana", but not all of them have links to the music.
We also have a lot of religious songs that are deeply rooted in our history...but that is a topic for another day.
Eduardo, check out the link above...both his version of The Star Spangled Banner and The Battle Hymn of the Republic are worth checking out....both are cool a capella arringments of classic songs from the USA.
posted
I've known "The Star Spangled Banner" since childhood (my english teachers - all of them American - taught me the song). The Battle Hymn is very beautiful indeed. I found its .mp3 on the net.
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posted
I love the breadth of context in my country:
from the flux of Twain's Mississippi to the Grapes of Wrath dustbowl to cantankerous old guys eating clam chowder up in Maine, to the light and outrageous lively of N'awlins (with its seething, murky bayous like the ripe dark Everglades of Florida) and the stern righteousness of the Pennsylvania Dutch ... children of all tints laughing and hanging out in front of Halloween brownstones in Chicahguh, the deep roots and bedrocks of Peters' Hollow in the Appalachias, to salty wet Seattle, and then spread all out under the Big Blue Sky of Idaho.
What I like about this isn't exclusive to the US, in the sense that we may not be the most diverse in immigration or even in quality of land, but it is the unique flavor of it. Ours, regardless of best or other ranking. Just ... what is ours. It tastes like my childhood and all I hoped to see when all grown up. I like that. I like that memory.
[ September 10, 2004, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
I would answer the above question, but I cannot put my answer into words that would make sense to anyone but me. It is a feeling that I get when I am outside walking around town just looking at all the other people walking around town with me.
But see, that doesn't make any sense because people walk in other countries (or at least I would be willing to bet money that they do )
But anyhow, in light of the fact that I cannot truly answer the question posed, I will say that what I love most about America is the Ice Cream, because at least that makes no sense on purpose.
quote:But see, that doesn't make any sense because people walk in other countries (or at least I would be willing to bet money that they do )
You don't have to interpret it as "Why I love my country as opposed to other countries" if you don't want to. I like your version just fine.
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posted
Hmm, good point Sara. Especially since I haven't exactly spent a lot of time in other countries.
SO my answer stands, my favorite part of life in America is the feeling I get when I am just out enjoying the day with a walk around town.
(Although I suppose this will only work in towns where you can walk around freely, it wasn't exactly the same feeling when I walked around inner city Houston as it is to walk around Columbia South Carolina.)
I just can't answer this question without some kind of asterisk after my answer. lol.
I've grown really calloused in the past few years and even get mad when I see someone displaying the American flag. For me and the society I live in, displaying an American flag is a discreet way of saying "America is better than other countries. Americans are the people whose opinions matter above all else. Force and violence are justified in upholding the American image."
When I see the flag, it's stuck to the window of a pickup with a Charlton Heston bumper sticker or worn on the tshirt of a self-righteous redneck who has the gall to question my "patriotism" due to the fact that I study French.
I've taken to displaying a giant French flag in my window, not because I think France is an idyllic land with no problems of its own, but as a simple reaction to the stick-on stars and stripes that all my neighbors paid $2.88 for at WalMart.
I need to find out how to love one's country without loving a shallow political front or a suspect shaky set of convictions. I need to figure out how to translate my adoration for the sheer size and grandeur of the Rocky Mountains and the busy hubub of Chicago and the quiet serenity of the great plains and the lovely diversity of people who live here into something that I can recognize as patriotism. I need to restore my desire to participate in a system that I see as corrupt and pretentious. Maybe I can gain that back, but it may take some learning and re-examination.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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That's quite sad for you Annie. I mean that genuinely and not in any looking down on you sort of way. I love America, and I want you to feel the same joy I feel about her. I am, at heart, a nationalist. I love living here, the smell, the taste, the feel. I love the culture and the movies and the wal-marts. I have an American Flag on the wall in my room. It is not on display, it is there because I want it there. I get a good feeling by looking at it, and it has nothing to do with feeling that other coutnries are crap. I believe that you can believe in the value of your country without devaluing all the rest. A true love of one thing does not have to include the hatred of another. When I see someone else displaying a flag, it fills me with joy to know that others feel the same way that I do. And truly, I am a cynical person when it comes to all other things, but I really love America, and that's all there is to it.
So I guess if you ever see me with a flag, don't look down on me because of it. I am not going to hate you because you speak French, in fact I will envy you your command of another language, something that I have no talent for. So please don't look down on all of us who choose to show our patriotism, it is not always a bad thing.
posted
I just wanted to make something clear. When I made my first post, it was not meant as a slam on Albania. I actually like that country. I'm a bigger fan of it than my wife is, and that's her home. I'm excited to have children who are half Albanian, to teach them about the language and the history and the beautiful mediterranean environment. It has a culture and history that is totally unique among its neighbors, and it's the birthplace of people like Mother Theresa and the parents of John Belushi. It's a really fantastic place, and the fact that it doesn't have much in the way of traffic cops or supermarkets doesn't change that.
Countries are just like people. I don't know anyone completely sinless, and I don't know anyone who is utterly base and lacking any good attributes. Saying that you love your country is like saying that you love your mother. I appreciate the fact that my mother never lied to me in all of her life, but that does not excuse the fact that she sometimes tends to be overly critical or a religious zealot. And it doesn't mean that I hate anyone's mother that ever told them a white lie. It's not about excusing faults or criticizing differences. It's all about optimism. It's about finding the good parts of anything or anyone and being proud of them. Remembering positive qualities is an essential part of a coherent plan to deal with negative qualities. And it's an essential for our personal happiness.
All I meant to do with this thread is provide a small oasis of good vibes whenever we got overloaded with the critical but heavy task of hashing out negatives. I've really enjoyed reading all of the posts on this thread. Even Annie's . I hope no one took it the wrong way.
posted
Annie, different people have different ways of showing patriotism. I've known people who proudly display the brazilian flag on their windows, and others who think it's silly. All these people (I know them very well) love Brazil and being brazilian. One of them (who proudly display the flag) is british by birth, but is very passionate about Brazil. What I'm trying to say, whith my faulty writting skills, is that you may love your country without waving the American flag everywhere, or dressing in its colors. I think you showed a lot of love for America in your post. And remember: a good citizen is also the one who can detect the worst flaws in his/her country and try to make it better.
I try to make my country better, everyday, little by little. I'm sure you do the same. Isn't it an act of love?
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posted
I know that not everyone who displays a flag is doing so for the reasons I listed. I totally understand your sentiment, prolix, and hope I can someday cultivate something similar. My bitterness comes from the local sentiment I'm surrounded with and experience with a very limited crowd of very sheltered people. I know that they are in the minority.
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As a historian of it, I love my country for the ideals which permeate it. We could argue about whether Thomas Jefferson meant to include slaves in the Declaration of Independence, but the fact that he wrote the words "all men are created equal" meant that throughout our country's history, that has been the potential we have had, the possibility to which we can aspire. Regardless of our imperfections and our crimes, and the fact that we have occasionally not been aware of it, the United States remains certainly the most prominant nation on earth founded upon belief in ideals like equality and freedom of conscience rather than membership in an ethnicity or possession of territory. If we have been belligerent in exporting those ideals, it does not change the fact that they are, in and of themselves, admirable and worthy. And that fact should create in Americans a sense of civic responsibility and commitment to strive towards the promise that our country holds and regret for every time we fail to live to that high standard.
Bob Barker. Yep. We've got Mr. Spay-and-Neuter on our side. Okay, so he may or may not be Canadian, but the memory of all those stray cats and dogs that wandered the streets of Rome and Athens really bugs me. They're everywhere!
I also really enjoy our garbagemen. They're so underappreciated. What I saw of Europe was... trashy... There was litter everywhere! It looked like everyone just assumed the nearest ravine was a good place to dump a truckload of trash.
Oh, and the fact that a (small) bottle of Coke is less than $4.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Since the thread has kind of sequed away from patriotic songs to things in general we love about our countries, I have to say that for me I love the Statue of Liberty: the way the money was raised by donations to fund its construction from all over the US and France, the torch that never goes out, and the inscription in the base:
quote: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
posted
Okay, we've covered the patriotic music. What about the rest of the music.
Some say Jazz is the most uniquely American art form. Whatever it is, it's all us, and it's brilliant. Nothing can make me happier than some Miles Davis or Benny Goodman or Charlie Parker or Glenn Miller or Duke Ellington or Charlie Mingus or The Crusaders or Pat Metheny or Thelonious Monk or John Coltrane or Louis Armstrong or Art Blakey or Larry Carlton or the Marsalis family or Bela Fleck or Ella Fitzgerald or Dave Brubeck or Gary Burton or Sonny Rollins or... well, you get the idea.
There are many great things about jazz. My favorite is the versatility of the art form. It's always evolving and you never know what you're going to get from it. Even in its original American incarnations, you have everything from ragtime to big band to cool jazz to bebop to fusion, and even some American classical music has jazz influences. What's more, practically every other culture in the world has used jazz as a tool to explore their own native music. I have jazz albums from Latin America, Scandinavia, Nigeria, Great Britain, Tunisia, Iran, India, Lebanon and Japan (and probably some more I'm forgetting). They're all unique and wonderful, and they all say something about the culture of the country they're from while simultaneously reflecting the culture of America.
There's plenty of other great American music. I may just bring some more of it up later. For now I'll just stick with jazz.
[ September 12, 2004, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Speed 2: Cruise Control ]
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posted
Bossa Nova's the goods. I just got the new Bebel Gilberto album. It's awesome. Another check in the "I Love Brazil" column as far as I'm concerned. Posts: 127 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Annie, some people feel the same way about anyone wearing a wedding ring. The flag is a symbol. What it is a symbol of depends on you. I do think it would do you some good to try life in a big city for an extended time. You've lived with a lot of big city problems, IIRC, though you are in a small town/rural setting. It's not surprsing that you are alienated from it.
I finally thought of something I love about the American lifestyle to share: we actually have a self-help book industry. Whether it works or not, I like that there are enough people genuinely interested in being a better person that it can support an industry. I guess the same goes for the sci fi book industry. People may complain that Americans aren't very sophisticated in the literary sense, but I think our country does have a very high literacy rate. Sure there are problems.
I was watching Spellbound last night, and there was a lot of discussion about how spelling bees are uniquely American. The pride immigrants can take in mastering our language is heartening. I think the "English Only" movement is tragic. People shouldn't be intimidated into learning English.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: I need to find out how to love one's country without loving a shallow political front or a suspect shaky set of convictions
Well, it might help to remind yourself that loving the country isn't the same thing as loving the goverment, or everyone who happens to be in the goverment at any given time.
I love this country because my great-grandparents came here to make a new life for themselves and their families, and did so in dramatic fashion. I don't know if they would have done as well anywhere else in the world....adn it doesn't matter, really. They chose here.
I love this country because of it's size....not because we are bigger than most other countries, but because of the variety of both the landscape and cultural influences. These are a blend that you only find here in the USA...you can find elements of it other place, but here it has it's own flavor, a flavor seeped in our own history and truths.
Politically speaking, I like a lot of our system, and I think that it is strong enough and flexable enough to weather the good and bad members that have served in it.
I like that for the most part you can worship whatever you want here, and be left alone. More people have died over that than any other issue in the history of the world, I think, but here we tend to take it for granted.
None of my reasons are insulting towards other countries, or breast-beating patriotism, but they are what works for me. I am proud to fly the US Flag because I am named after my father, who was named after his own brother.....who died on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
And above all else, I am proud to be an American, even though I may not be proud of some of it's actions these days. The goverment isn't all of American....and in some ways it isn't the most important part at all.
(edited to add great grandparents...my grandparents were American-born.. ) Kwea
posted
In about October 2001, my work handed out American flags stickers to everyone.
I put it on my car.
This puzzled me, at first. I wasn't quite sure why I was putting it on there. It wasn't social pressure, it wasn't war-mongering, it definitely wasn't a desire to lump myself in with the secretary at my office who thinks those who don't want "Under God" in the pledge are unAmerican. But I did put it on my car, and I still have it on my car. I don't want to take it off - it's okay for it to be there. What other people have done with the symbol doesn't change what I think of the symbol - refusing to show it because of them is letting them have as much influence as showing it as an effort to fit in with them would be.
Of course, I also have a "Go-Kat-Go" sticker from Banna on my car, so keep that in mind.
I am an American, and for good and ill, this culture, land, and people are a part of me.
I don't think in order to be patriotic you have to fly a flag, or have a better-than-thou attitude towards other countries.
But I have a problem with people telling me I souuldn't, without knowing what it means to me, or why I fly the flag.
Most of my life my family only flew it on holidays, and I didn't know why it mattered. As I grew older, and met people who had immigrated to the US, I began to understand a bit more.
When I found my uncles war medals, and my dad's service stuff, it meant a bit more to me.
And when I went into the Army, for completely selfish reasons, I saw a lot of good things along with some of the bad.
The more I learn about the US, the more I love it. I wouldn't want to be Brazillian, or Canadian, or French...not because they are bad, or because they have nothing to offer. They do, and they have contributed to making America what it is today.
But I like where I am. And I understand that most other people may not want to be American...and that is cool too. It is as it should be...
America isn't the only place to have its own flavor...they all do. They all have something to offer, and they are all special.
America means something different to everyone, and that is part of what makes it special.
posted
I love the land of my country. I can feel it in my bones, and I am proud that my bones will eventually add calcium to it.
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