This is mainly a question for Americans, though those of you in other countries are welcome to chime in!
I ask because I was talking to a friend in California the other day, and told her my story about threatening to sing God Bless America naked in church.
With a tone of… slight disdain? mild disturbance? moderate ewwwww? she said: "You actually know the words to God Bless America?
Well, um… yeah.
(I mean, that wasn’t the point of the story, and I wasn’t really going to sing naked in church at all, but yeah.)
I learned them in grade school, along with the words to My Country Tis of Thee, The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, Glory Glory Hallelujah, and all that.
Is that weird? I mean, regardless of how one feels about America, about forcing patriotism/Christian notions of “God” on kids, or about Celine Dion (who sang God Bless America on that TV special that was on every channel after 9/11), I figured that everyone learned those songs in school as a kid (or at least everyone 30 and older… don’t know what they’re doing with the young whippersnappers these days)…
Apparently I was wrong, because my friend (who grew up in California) NEVER learned these songs in school.
Well, I’m 41, and I know loads of patriotic songs… but not from my school days. We didn’t learn many patriotic songs in the Catholic school I went to during the 1960s. In fact, the only “patriotic” songs I remember being taught were:
“America” (My Country, Tis of Thee), which we learned in 1st grade
Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” which our hippie/folkie nun teacher taught us in 2nd grade , and which we always had to sing (along with “If I Had a Hammer” and “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”) on the bus to CYO camp.
As for the other patriotic standards, I learned most of them at baseball games and other sporting events (remember when Kate Smith used to sing “God Bless America” before Philadelphia Flyers hockey games?).
<-- probably the only person in North Carolina, other than my wife, who knew the words to “O Canada” before the hockey playoffs.
I know most American patriotic songs (owing to skilled elementary school teachers, for the most part) and also the words to the Finnish patriotic folk song which Jan Sibelius used as the main theme for “Finlandia,” the hymn that is a free translation of the Czarist national anthem of Russia, and a couple of other “foreign” national songs (plus the parody words to “Louis XVI was the King of France…” if that counts).
I know all the aforementioned songs, but then I know a lot of song lyrics. I can also sing a bunch of patriotic songs by George M. Cohen, such as Over There, You’re a Grand Old Flag and Yankee Doodle Boy. In a pinch, you could call Give My Regards to Broadway a patriotic song:
*Did you ever see two Yankees part,
Upon a foreign shore,
When the good ship’s just about to start
For old New York once more?
With tear-dimmed eye, they say goodbye,
They’re friends without a doubt.
When the man on the pier shouts,
'Let ‘em clear!’
As the ship strikes out …
Hmm, maybe it makes a difference that you went to a Catholic school while I went to a public school (which was called Bishop Elementary, but there was no religious affiliation).
Maybe it’s just that I grew up in the “God, Country, Mom and Apple Pie” Heartland, whereas my friend grew up in Northern California (which was more Buddha, Beach, Guru and Hash Brownies)?
We sang them a lot, Em, but I don’t remember doing so every damn day. But remember in Peggy Sue Got Married, Kathleen Turner singing My Country Tis of Thee with nostalgic gusto while her bemused classmates looked on? That would suggest you’re not alone!
As a Christian, my Father is God, and His Kingdom is therefore my fatherland. So every song and hymn of praise to Him (or his Son) would qualify as ‘patriotic’, from my POV.
But to answer the OP more straightforwardly, I can certainly get through at least a verse of “God Bless America”, “America the Beautiful”, “My Country, 'Tis of Thee”, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “From the Halls of Montezuma”, “The Caisson Song”, and of course “The Star-Spangled Banner”. I’m sure I learned practically all of them in school.
I’m surprised that some schools apparently aren’t teaching kids the standard patriotic songs. And disappointed, despite my previous post. Part of the normal civics education in any country should include the country’s history, the basic workings of its government, an introduction to the values it holds dear, and even its basic repertoire of patriotic songs. (Cultural literacy, and all that.)
I don’t believe kids should be required to sing those songs. (It’s a freedom-of-religion thing.) But most kids, in most places, will want to, and those that don’t should be expected to behave quietly and respectfully while the others sing.
I don’t know if I’d be too surprised to meet, say, a 10-year-old who didn’t know the songs.
I was surprised that my 30-year-old friend didn’t.
FTR, I would hardly classify myself as a particularly patriotic person (that’s alliteration!)–for me the songs were just… there, and everybody knew them, just like we all knew the “Like a Lightbulb” version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Of course, when I was a kid, I was not giving a bit of thought to the sentiment behind these songs (or, for that matter, behind Rudolph), or to the ways in which these songs might make some kids feel excluded.
Nowadays, I don’t supposed I’d be surprised to meet a kid (say, a 10-year-old) who hasn’t been taught the songs in school; I was, however, surprised to know a 30-year-old who never learned them in school.
Then again, our grade school music teacher was mighty ambitious; not only were we well-versed in Rod McKuen by the second grade, we also knew a slew of Hanukkah songs (I only knew of one Jewish kid), and I learned the Negro National Anthem long before I knew I was a little Black child!
I was in school choirs for years. In church we also sang patriotic “hymns” around the 4th of July so I know a fair number of songs:
Star Spangled Banner
My Country 'Tis of Thee
The Battle Hymn of the Republic (would this be what you mean my Glory, Glory, Hallelujah?)
Songs for all the branches of military service - The Marines Hymn (From the Halls of Montezuma), The Caisson Song for the army, the Air Force song whose title I can’t remember right now, and Anchors Away for the navy
This Land is Your Land
America the Beautiful, which I can also play on the piano
Yankee Doodle
God Bless America
I know bits and pieces of a few others but those are the ones that I could sing at least one full verse off the top of my head. And I even know the official state song of Washington which, contrary to popular belief, is not Louie, Louie but Washington My Home.
I’m only 24 so 15-20 years ago it was still possible to learn patriotic songs in school. I find it mind boggling that anyone 30 years old and native to this country doesn’t know at least a couple of these songs. If nothing else you could absorb them at sporting events.
To be honest, pendgwen, this particular friend of mine would probably resist any sort of absorption of patriotic songs (and in fact may have simply resisted learning them in grade school), on personal principle.
This is a kid who started refusing to say the Pledge in, like, the 3rd grade or something (I would never have been so politically aware/concerned at that age). Her (single) dad was called down to the school, and stood up for her, which I always thought was pretty cool, since I don’t know if my parents would have, if it had been ME (but you never know…).
At any rate, she seemed disgusted enough that I knew God Bless America, that she probably plugs her ears and hums Love Rollercoaster to herself whenever she hears it.
There was a soldier, a Scottish soldier
Who wandered far away and soldiered far away
There was none bolder, with good broad shoulder
He’s fought in many a fray, and fought and won.
He’d seen the glory and told the story
Of battles glorious and deeds neforious
But now he’s sighing, his heart is crying
To leave these green hills of Tyrol.
Because these green hills are not highland hills
Or the island hills, the’re not my land’s hills
And fair as these green foreign hills may be
They are not the hills of home.
And now this soldier, this Scottish soldier
Who wandered far away and soldiered far away
Sees leaves are falling and death is calling
And he will fade away, in that far land.
He called his piper, his trusty piper
And bade him sound a lay… a pibroch sad to play
Upon a hillside, a Scottish hillside
Not on these green hills of Tyrol.
And so this soldier, this Scottish soldier
Will wander far no more and soldier far no more
And on a hillside, a Scottish hillside
You’ll see a piper play his soldier home.
He’d seen the glory, he’d told his story
Of battles glorious and deeds victorious
The bugles cease now, he is at peace now
Far from those green hills of Tyrol.
I probably know more songs about Ireland than I do about America, but that won’t surprise anyone who’s spent any time over here.
There’s an Irish version of “This Land Is Your Land”, btw:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From the northern highlands, to the western islands
From the hills of Kerry, to the streets of (Free!) Derry
This land was made for you and me.
It’s so popular over here I’ve actually encountered people who don’t realise it’s an American song originally.
I’m in my very late 20s, from Washington (state) and I know
God Bless America
at least 2 verses of The Star Spangled Banner
at least 2 verses of My Country 'Tis of Thee
all verses of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, America the Beautiful, & the Negro National Anthem
Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle Dandy
This Land is Your Land
The Marine Hymn & Caissons Song,
and You’re a Grand Old Flag
But we didn’t sing them in school very often, if at all. Definitely not every day. We didn’t do the pledge of allegiance very often either. It phased out over elementary school (and only on special occasions after that). I picked up most of the songs from church, or girl scouts, or parental indoctrination, or just on my own.
Gosh, I learned all of the songs mentioned above in school, and I was born and raised in Southern California and went to public schools. However, I’m 51, and my era may have something to do with it.
I read somewhere that “This Land is Your Land” is actually a protest song, but nobody ever sings the protest verses. Alas, I don’t remember them either.
Ruadh mentioned an Irish version of it – I’ve heard a Canadian version, too.
Anyway. I know most of the famous ones, though for the most part not from school. I even used to know “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” because I was in The Music Man in high school and at one point the cast is required to sing a bit of it. And some patriotic songs from other countries – like “La Marseillaise” and “Nkosi sikeleli Afrika” (which is absolutely gorgeous) and whatnot.
Oh, and I also know a whole bunch of Civil War songs (from both sides – alas, the Confederate songs are much catchier) but they wouldn’t all qualify as patriotic, per se…
I know all of the mentioned songs. I’m 17, by the way. We learned them all in elementary school. Good times. I was watching a commerical for a CD of a whole bunch of Patriotic songs sung/played by different groups in the different areas of the military, and I was shocked when I realized I knew almost every single song’s lyrics.
Jenny*
