The songs that define America

0:00Independence Day means different things to each of us. And even though there is only one official national anthem,

0:12there are a whole lot more songs that help define America.

0:24Like America the Beautiful, courtesy here of Ray Charles, which marvels at the nation as it is, but also as it could be. America, America, make God thy gold refined. Till all success be nobleness and ever again divine. Or Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land, which hands each of us the keys. In the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me. Today, on America's 249th birthday, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to dig into some songs that have become galvanizing forces in American culture, from NPR's American Anthem series. It's Consider This from NPR.

1:34I'm Elsa Chang. It's Consider This from NPR. We're going to start with a song that many of you will probably remember from childhood. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Critic Eric Deggans looked at how the beloved children's song, This Little Light of Mine, became a civil rights anthem.

2:05Sometimes, experts say, songs like This Little Light of Mine start off as children's folk songs, which become spiritual, sung everywhere from churches to prison work camps.

2:19As the civil rights movement grew in the 1950s and 60s, singers changed the lyrics to reference their struggles. These new versions were known as freedom songs.

2:34It might seem odd to call such an innocent-sounding song defiant, but that's exactly how blues singer Betty Mae Fikes felt when she created her classic version of This Little Light of Mine in 1963. She improvised the lyrics after a protest in which several of her friends had been attacked. And I'm thinking, you know, how does the light shine when they're trying to put our lights out? So everybody was taking verses. In order to come in, I just went into the slave call.

3:14And all of a sudden, I just started adding our precious in the song. Tell Jim Clark I'm going to let it shine. And as I added my oppressors, here are the people in the audience begin to shout out, tell the KKK, tell our president. It was like being free. Still, one question persists. Why has this little light of mind survived for so long? Robert Darden, a professor at Baylor University who's written about the song in at least two books, has a theory. If you've asked some of the survivors of the civil rights movement, as I did, survivors who sang these songs for protection and for courage, why this little light of mine survives and is still sung, they would look at me straight in the eye and say, because those songs are anointed.

4:08And as an academic, I have no way to refute that, nor do I want to. There's a little light of mine. I'm going to let it shine. That was Robert Darden talking to NPR's Eric Deggans about this little light of mine. The word anthem connotes something big, right? Something that unites listeners, but also maybe something that challenges them. Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man was composed in 1942. And since then, it has been heard everywhere. NPR's Mandelit Del Barco looked into why this song continues to command so much attention. Aaron Copeland began his fanfare with dramatic percussion.

4:56It heralds something big, exciting, heroic. Then simple trumpet notes ascend.

5:16It's a piece that feels like it was written by God and not by a human. Jazz trumpet player and composer Terrence Blanchard. Whenever I hear it, it stops me in my tracks, and it makes me reflect on the goodness of man, really. And I know that sounds corny for some, but it really makes me think about at the end of the day, you know, most people in this country are good, God-fearing people. Honestly, that could have been our national anthem. It has that type of spirit to it.

6:11By 1942, the U.S. had entered World War II, and composer Aaron Copeland was inspired by a speech Vice President Henry A. Wallace gave to rally Americans. Some have spoken of the American century. I say that the century on which we are entering, the century which will come into being after this war can be and must be the century of the common man. And the common man deserved a fanfare, Copeland once said, remarking it was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army. NPR asked listeners to reflect on Aaron Copeland's fanfare. My name is Lynn Gilbert, and I live in Bristol, Maine.

6:55My career was in IT for a utility company. And in spite of the current political landscape, I guess I still believe that there is an American dream of peace and prosperity for everyone. And music that soars and inspires like this piece does brings hope for the future. It's powerful, it's direct, and it's really just American. I love it. Thank you, Erin Copeland. All of that in a piece that's under four minutes long.

7:40Mandalita Albarco, NPR News. Lynn Neary first heard Bob Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin' when she was barely a teenager. Once she heard the song, she says pretty much nothing was the same after that.

8:01This protest song from 1963 continues to find new meaning for new generations. In 2018, thousands of young people gathered on the National Mall for the March for Our Lives in response to the Parkland School shooting. Singer Jennifer Hudson closed the event with this song, and she was backed by a choir of young people. All right, let's run it from the top. Ranging in age from 13 to 30, they meet regularly to rehearse in Columbia, Maryland.

8:41Come gather round people wherever you go. Gather round and round Choir director Jonathan Ball says he was surprised when the choir was asked to sing the times they are a-changing at the march. He didn't know the song, and neither did most of the members of the choir. Ball says as they started to rehearse, the lyrics took on more meaning for all of them. He began imagining what it would be like to sing those words. Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call on the National Mall. In my mind, when I was arranging the part, I was like, I hope the president hears this. I hope the senators, the congressmen are actually listening.

9:19Like a movie almost. They hear the music and they just write a new law. Come senators and congressmen, please heed the call. Don't you stand in the doorway, don't you block off the hall. Erica Edmund is the lead singer. She says the full impact of the song really hit when the choir sang it during the march. because we were there looking at all of these people. I would look into the crowd seeing people crying. You know, you had people that are begging, screaming for change. So it makes it easy for me to sing the song because it means so much to what I've seen now. Choir member Theron Fowler was amazed that one song could be so powerful.

10:01This anthem, it brought us together for something bigger than ourselves. No matter what race, what culture, background, religious, whatever, it brought everyone together. And so a new generation takes up the anthem that inspired young people more than 50 years ago. But it's not a song that looks to the past. It's an anthem of hope for a future where change is always possible.

10:36NPR's Lynn Neary on the times they are a-changin'. NPR also asked you to send us stories about your personal anthems. And a number of you wrote about the Simon and Garfunkel song, America. It's a road trip song that's about more than just traveling, right? Listeners said it speaks to a quest for meaning. Here, in their own words, are Eugene Lesansky, Yael Cohen, and Val Sullivan. The whole part where he says, I'm empty and aching and I don't know why, just really is kind of how I feel as an American right now. I'm empty and aching and I don't know why Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike They've all come to look for America Many of us, myself included, have been stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike and it's not a place that you would really think that you would find meaning.

11:41Realizing that everybody is looking for America. What does that mean? For me, getting to know America is more about the questions that we ask than the sort of sureness that we might reach in our own experience. I don't know whether we ever did find it or whether this was just a kixotic quest, but I think all of us are still searching for America and hoping to find it and define it and give it meaning. And we all do that in our own way. Whether you have found your America or you're still searching, we wish you all a very happy Independence Day. Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together.

12:34NPR's American Anthem series first aired on the radio in 2018. You can still listen to all of the stories on NPR.org. There's a link in our episode notes. And before we go, we want to acknowledge our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Thank you so much. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

13:10It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.