A List of American Songs All of My Students Should Know
By Amy Braica
I have been trying to compile a list of all the American songs every student should know. It has been quite the undertaking. Some songs that are a part of our American consciousness are totally inappropriate for me to teach my students in school. Songs with swears or overtly sexual or violent messages though they may be legitimate art should be left up to the parents of my students as to when or if their children as minors should be exposed to those pieces of music. I believe very strongly in keeping parents in control of such matters. This list was also difficult to create because I realized how many bands I wanted my students to be exposed to and yet there is no one song that I want them to learn to sing by heart as a part of our national identity. Their style may be a part of our national consciousness but none of their individual works is so iconic that it should always be a part of the school curriculum. For example, The Beach Boys have a number of songs that anyone of my generation can immediately recognize from only the first few notes but none of their songs meets the high standard of being a part of every school’s curriculum and every student should sing and basically know the words by heart.
I have settled on an amalgamation of the list set out by NAfME, some civil rights and counter culture songs, show tunes and Native American music.
NAfME, the National Association for Music Educators who has its own list of songs that every American should learn. Some of the songs on their list such as Yesterday by the Beatles are not American songs so I have removed them from the list. The following is the remainder of the list created by NAfME:
Amazing Grace
America
America the Beautiful
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Blue Skies
De Colores
Do-Re-Mi
Down by the Riverside
Give My Regards to Broadway
God Bless America
God Bless the U.S.A.
Green, Green Grass of Home
He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
Home on the Range
I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)
Let There Be Peace on Earth
Michael, Row the Boat Ashore
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’
Oh! Susanna
Over My Head
Puff the Magic Dragon
Rock-a My Soul
She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain
Shenandoah
Simple Gifts
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Star-Spangled Banner
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
This Land Is Your Land
This Little Light of Mine
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah
Music Alone Shall Live
The following songs are additions to the NAfME repertoire
Elementary level songs:
Oh When the Saints Go Marchin In
Happy Birthday
Mary Had a Little Lamb
The Black National Anthem:
Lift Ev’ry Heart and Sing by James Weldon Johnson
For Middle School and High School
Song of the 1960s
The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
Bridge Over Troubled Waters Simon and Garfunkel
Where Have All the Flowers Gone Pete Seeger
Turn Turn Turn by The Byrds
Lean on Me by Bill Withers
Showtunes
What’ll I do by Berlin
Always by Irving Berlin
Ole Man River by Jerome Kern
Can’t Help Lovin' Dat Man o Mine by Jerome Kern
All the Things You Are by Jerome Kern
Look For the Silver Lining by Jerome Kern
Summertime by Gershwin
Embraceable You by Gershwin
Someone to Watch Over Me by Gershwin
Our Love is Here to Stay by Gershwin
Climb Every Mountain by Rogers and Hammerstein
Some Enchanted Evening by Rogers and Hammerstein
What a Wonderful World sung by Louis Armstrong
For High School Only due to meaning of the song:
Strange Fruit song by Billie Holiday-(veiled references to lynching.)
In addition to these American songs we should not exclude songs by Native American tribes. Native Americans are the original Americans and part of our nations culture. It is absolutely necessary for students to learn real Native American songs. This has been difficult in the past as many Native American cultures find recordings of their songs to be an invasion of privacy (at least according to one professor I had in college who was getting his PHD in Native American music.)
Lately, I have found performances of Native American music on Youtube. So the question now becomes adapting the music for the vocal style of singing that we use in western European singing. Singing in the style of throat singing could be damaging for students working with a teacher who is not versed on this system of singing.
From what I have heard on Youtube, I plan to teach my students the Lakota Lullaby. The song has a nice easy to remember melody line. The choruses are sung on vocables and there is only one short verse that is repeated twice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNulkDwFAxY
I am always on the lookout for other authentic pieces of Native American music that best represent those communities so please send my links to more music that I should be listening to.
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