9/11: Songs of Remembrance & Tribute For Patriot’s Day

September 11, 2001 was a day that we stopped doing whatever it was that we were doing at the time we first became aware of what was taking place in New York City. If we had access to a television,  it was tuned in to the live coverage of the darkest day in modern US history. We watched in astonishment and disbelief  as the events were unfolding and being reported live on the scene – like something out of a scripted Hollywood movie with all the special effects. But it was real – very real! It was as if time stood still. We experienced several different emotions over the course of the day as well as days following. It shook us to the core with raw emotion – from initial shock to disbelief  to worry to fear to sadness to anger. We witnessed  first responders arriving on the scene and immediately start in on rescuing people while trying to organize efforts as what to do next.

A spectrum of emotions

The songs listed below have come from a variety of different perspectives….. reflecting the scope of Americans’ reactions to that day as well as the internal turmoil that many feel. There is a range from sadness to anger to American Pride. Many of these were written long before 2001 but the message or sentiment conveyed within the song fits here also.

1. 8th of November – Big & Rich
2. America – Neil Diamond
3. America – Simon & Garfunkel
4. America Is My Home – James Brown
5. America We Stand As One – Dennis Madalone
6. America Will Always Stand – Randy Travis
7. America Will Survive – Hank Williams Jr.
8. American Child – Phil Vassar
9. American Soldier – Toby Keith
10. American Trilogy – Elvis Presley/Mickey Newberry
11. American Tune – Paul Simon
12. Arlington – Trace Adkins
13. Ashes To Ashes – Steve Earle
14. Ballad of Ira Hayes – Johnny Cash
15. Ballad of The Green Beret – SSgt. Barry Sadler
16. Blowin’ In The Wind – Bob Dylan/Peter, Paul & Mary
17. Courtesy of The Red, White & Blue (The Angry American) – Toby Keith
18. Days of America – Blackhawk
19. Don’t Mess With America – Cledus T. Judd
20. Everyday Angels – Radney Foster
21. Fightin’ Side Of Me – Merle Haggard
22. Fireworks – Roxette
23. Freedom – Paul McCartney
24. God Bless The USA – Lee Greenwood
25. God, Country & Family – Craig Morgan
26. Hands That Built America – U2
27. Have You Forgotten – Darryl Worley
28. Hello God – Dolly Parton
29. Here Comes The Freedom Train – Merle Haggard
30. Homeland – Kenny Rogers
31. I Am Mine – Pearl Jam
32. If I Had A Hammer – Trini Lopez/Peter Paul & Mary
33. If You’re Reading This – Tim McGraw
34. The Immigrant – Neil Sedaka
35. In America – Charlie Daniels Band
36. Last Band of Brothers – Keni Thomas
37. Last Fallen Angel – Charlie Daniels
38. Let’s Roll – Neil Young
39. Let’s Roll America – Bellamy Brothers
40. Letter From America – The Proclaimers
41. Letters From Home – John Michael Montgomery
42. Living In The Promised Land – Willie Nelson
43. More Beautiful – Mark McGuinn
44. Oh Freedom – Pete Seeger
45. Only In America – Brooks & Dunn
46. Only In America – Jay & The Americans
47. Our Country – John Mellencamp
48. Overcome – Live
49. Point of Light – Randy Travis
50. Promised Land – Elvis Presley
51. Ragged Old Flag – Johnny Cash
52. Red, White & Blue – Brian McKnight
53. Red, White & Blue – Lynyrd Skynyrd
54. Riding With Private Malone – David Ball
55. The Rising – Bruce Springsteen
56. Some Gave All – Billy Ray Cyrus
57. Song Of The Patriot – Johnny Cash
58. This Ain’t No Rag (It’s A Flag) – Charlie Daniels Band
59. This Is My Country – The Impressions (Curtis Mayfield)
60. This Land Is Your Land – Woody Guthrie/Peter, Paul & Mary/The Kingston Trio
61. Travelin’ Soldier –  Dixie Chicks
62. United We Stand – The Brotherhood of Man
63. We Shall Be Free – Garth Brooks
64. What Made America Famous – Harry Chapin
65. Where Eagles Fly – Sammy Hagar
66. Where The Stars & Stripes & The Eagle Fly – Aaron Tippin
67. Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning – Alan Jackson
68. You’ve Got To Stand For Something – Aaron Tippin

World Trade Center Memorial Lights

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Highly recommended tribute links to September 11, 2001:

http://www.jontzen.com/tribute.htm

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American Pride & Patriotic Songs

Here is a sampling of some traditional patriotic songs about American Pride ….. the ultimate sounds of patriotism at it’s finest spanning over the past century and then some. Suitable for formal civic gatherings, memorials, dedications, military honors, parades as well as private family functions honoring long time veterans celebrating retirement or recent family members returning home from service to our country in the Middle East or elsewhere overseas. These also can make a nice playlist for your celebrations of  Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day, Flag Day or Patriots Day (honoring those who lost their lives on our darkest day during the tragic attacks of September 11 in New York City).

These have been recorded by several artists and musicians over the years but I have listed the “best of” renditions whenever possible.

• America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)
• America The Beautiful – Frank Sinatra/Elvis Presley/Ray Charles
• Anchors Aweigh (US Navy Anthem)
• Battle Hymn of The Republic – Mitch Miller & His Gang
• Caissons Go Rolling Along (US Army Anthem)
• Dixie
• From The Halls of Montezuma (US Marines Anthem)
• God Bless America – Kate Smith
• Star Spangled Banner – Whitney Houston
• Stars and Strips Forever – John Philips Sousa
• When Johnny Comes Marching Home
• Wild Blue Yonder (US Air Force Anthem)
• Yankee Doodle – James Cagney
• You’re A Grand Old Flag
• The Gettysburg Address – recited by Johnny Cash

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Here are 2 more posts (on this site) that I added here last year covering several additional songs that fit a similar theme – Use the following links to view:

“Songs to Celebrate America’s 4th Of July”

9/11: Songs of Remembrance & Tribute For Patriot’s Day

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Below are the words to a very powerful tribute to the USA delivered on Canadian radio back in 1973. I personally have both copies of the original vinyl 45 rpm, one delivered on the air by Gordon Sinclair and a second by Byron MacGregor. Both are collector’s items. They serve as a heartfelt and stirring tribute to the very root as well as the backbone of what America stands for ….. as meaningful today (probably even more so considering what this country has been through since 1973) as it was 26 years ago……….

Here is the You Tube link if you care to watch plus listen to it while reading below.

The Americans:

A Canadian’s Opinion

by Gordon Sinclair

[originally radio broadcast on June 5, 1973 in Ontario Canada]

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971, and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous, and possibly the least-appreciated, people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Well who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that’s who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan, and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there — I saw that. When distant cities are hit by earthquake, it is the United States that hurries into help, Managua, Nicaragua, is one of the most recent examples.

So far this spring, fifty-nine American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped. The Marshall Plan, as well as the Truman Policy all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, war-mongering Americans.

Now, I’d like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on now, you, let’s hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas 10? If so, why don’t they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times, and, safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They’re right here on our streets in Toronto. Most of them, unless they’re breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend up here.

When the Americans get out of this bind — as they will — who could blame them if they said “the hell with the rest of the world.” Let somebody else buy the bonds. Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won’t shake apart in earthquakes.” When the railways of France, and Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of ‘em are still broke.

I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don’t think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They’ll come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they’re entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians.

And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year’s disasters — with the year less than half-over — has taken it all. And nobody, but nobody, has helped.

• 9/11: Songs of Remembrance & Tribute For Patriot’s Day

• 100+ Songs To Celebrate America’s 4th of July