Final Blog Post

     For my final blog post, I chose to discuss how music can bring people together, particularly speaking during a national crisis. During this post, I will be focusing on the United States, and how people from all over the world come here to get a fresh start with freedom and hopes of living the “American Dream.” There are so many amazing songs about this great country of ours that make us proud to be an American, even if we all don’t necessarily agree or get along with one another. 

    Obviously, the first song that comes to everyone’s mind when they think of an American song is the Star Spangled Banner, but I’m going to focus more on other songs that demonstrate our American pride.

    One of these other songs just so happens to be one that I think is just as popular as the Star Spangled Banner, and that would be God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood. This song was written by Greenwood in 1984 in response to his feelings about the shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight 007, but God Bless the U.S.A. became very popular after the 9/11 attack and during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.    “…we just need to be more united,” and this song really does bring us all together. 

God Bless the U.S.A. – Lee Greenwood

    The song starts out slow with quiet instrumentals, along with Greenwood’s vocals. As the song continues to gain momentum, the chorus gets more intense with the addition of drums and louder vocals. Background vocals are then added, which makes the song more dynamic. At one point during the song, Greenwood says, “…it’s time we stand and say that I’m proud to be an American…,” which signifies Greenwoods message for us Americans to come together and stand up for our country.

    Another patriotic song that I recently listened to that can really bring people together in a national crisis is Only in America. This song is often grouped with songs written in response to 9/11, but it was written before in June of 2001. The song was written by Kix Brooks, Don Cook and Ronnie Rodgers, and performed by Brooks & Dunn. 

Only in America – Brooks & Dunn

    This song is much more upbeat compared to God Bless the U.S.A.The instruments help carry the soft, fun tone the song has, and the fast tempo helps a lot with that also. Only in America is played in the keys of E and F major, which is accompanied largely by electric guitar. The lyrics talk about how we should celebrate the freedom and opportunity that is found in America, where anything is possible. I really like how this song doesn’t have any politics involved whatsoever too because some of these patriotic songs do. Even if you don’t like country music, everyone loves America and this song is all-inclusive and upbeat, which makes it where everyone can sing and dance to it no matter what your ethnicity or political views are.

My Personal Journey Through This Course

    Before taking this class, I didn’t really know much about music besides what I liked listening to. I never analyzed different parts of a song nor did I even know how to. I’ve learned so much about music as a whole throughout this class, and even learned some things about myself. This class has made me feel emotions that I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling because of the musical elements that connect us to each of these songs that we chose to do for our individual blog posts. My relationship with music will now go further than just lyrics because of this course opening up my eyes and making me see the bigger picture behind a song.

“God Bless the U.S.A.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Nov. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_the_U.S.A. 

“Only in America (Brooks & Dunn Song).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_in_America_(Brooks_&_Dunn_song).