A Patriot’s Playlist: Ten Songs That Define America

Marvin Gaye’s 1971 towering and iconic single ‘What’s Going On’ stands testament to the intelligence and open-mindedness of American music. Rejected not once but twice for being two political, the song eventually became a number-one hit for Gaye for five consecutive weeks, selling over two million copies. The song was inspired by the experiences of Gaye’s friend and member of the Four Tops, Obie Benson, who had been a first-hand witness to ‘Bloody Thursday’ - a peace protest in Berkley, California that had ended in police brutality. Benson initially started penning the song for the Four Tops, however when they turned it down for being a protest song, he turned to Gaye, who "added some things that were more ghetto, more natural, which made it seem like a story than a song... we measured him for the suit and he tailored the hell out of it.” After recording, Gaye’s label again refused to release it - so he went on strike until they changed their minds.

It’s easy to forget that Mr. William Joel is both one of the most successful musicians of all time and an excellent songwriter. The reason why people do forget is that Mr. William Joel is a very talented musician who desperately wants to be cool - specifically early-era-Springsteen cool - and absolutely is not. He tells us he ‘runs with a dangerous crowd’, he’s a ‘downtown man’. He even has a music video where he gets sent to what can only be described as fantasy music court - although ironically it isn’t for ‘An Innocent Man’, as one might imagine (it’s for ‘Keeping the Faith' and it’s bizarre, essential viewing). What he was, at his best, was an excellent bar singer and pianist - and when he’s paired with the right material, such as the smokey and cinematic ‘New York State of Mind’, the results are undeniably evocative. The song captures the affection and the sense of place one can have for a city like New York, how one finds purchase and purpose in urban living.

Outside of ‘Born to Run’, ‘My Hometown’ might be the most prototypically Springsteen song out there. The narrator - presumably in small town New Jersey - nostalgically recalls driving around his hometown with his father, before witnessing racial tension and unemployment subsume it as he grows older, and finally - this is a Springsteen song - dreaming of packing up and leaving town himself with his partner and son. ‘My Hometown’ tapped into both small town alienation and into the slow death that many smaller, Rust Belt industrial towns face - something that feels even more topical today than when the song was released in 1985.

When NWA released ‘Straight Outta Compton’ in 1991, no one was ready for it. Although their lyrics came from a place of genuine struggle, NWA were also deliberately out to shock and provoke, using profanity and gratuitous violent and drug-related imagery to build their reputation. In this they were successful, quickly branded ‘the world’s most dangerous group’ - which of course only made their allure all the stronger. They were wildly gifted wordsmiths, and behind their confrontational lyrics, NWA’s music was intelligent and informed - ‘Straight Outta Compton’s production samples from Wilson Pickett, Funkadelic, The Winstons and James Brown, amongst others. They were also one of the first groups to exploit the burgeoning concept of reality television in their myth-making, such as in their infamous staged arrest stunt during an Arsenio Hall talk-show appearance. A foundational text.

The Eagles were a certifiably Big Deal prior to 1977’s Hotel California, but the release of that album - and this, it’s title track - was what cemented their place in the pantheon, and perfected their melding of country, folk, bluegrass and rock and roll into something distinct. Almost since its release, ‘Hotel California’ has been a radio staple; the song’s incessant groove and Don Henley’s impressionistic lyrics create an evocative and vaguely sinister atmosphere, before crescendoing into Joe Walsh's triumphant, cascading guitar solo coda. Those deliberately cryptic lyrics have remained part of the song’s appeal - its meaning, in tandem with the record’s cover art, having been endlessly dissected, alternately read as being about the American Dream, American excess, consumerism, drug addiction, cannibalism or devil worship. In the 1980s a Christian evangelical group even asserted that the song was about a specific San Francisco hotel that had been purchased by Anton LaVey and converted into the Church of Satan. Henley, eternally questioned about the song, later reflected that the hotel was simply a metaphor “not only for the myth-making of Southern California, but for the myth-making that is the American Dream, because it is a fine line between the American Dream, and the American nightmare.”

‘Walk on The Wild Side’, Lou Reed’s affectionate paean to New York wildlife, remains one of Twentieth Century America’s most surprising mainstream hits. Over a loping bassline and that unmistakable doo-wop refrain, Reed sings about prostitution, sex, drugs and transsexuality, through the stories of several of Andy Warhol’s Factory ‘superstars’ such as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn. The song, produced by none other than David Bowie and Mick Ronson, was Reed’s first major hit, and had been deliberately worded “so the straights can miss out on the implications and enjoy them without being offended.” He was initially wary of his subjects’ reactions (as he had not told or even met some of them), however it was embraced with open arms, echoing Warhol’s ever-more-prescient maxim that in the future, we would all have our fifteen minutes of fame.

The robotic, Kraftwerk-esque ‘Material Girl’ was Madonna’s second major single of 1984 , and no song better captures the gaudy excess of mid-Eighties America and, along with ‘Like a Virgin’, cemented Madonna as a major artistic and creative force. Lambasted by conservative critics for suggesting that women might actually enjoy sex and money, Madonna’s pseudo-satire on consumer culture resonated with her voracious fanbase for the very same reasons. ‘Material Girl’ succeeds not only as a platonic ideal of early-Eighties pop, but as a display of confidence, intent and social critique. Madonna came to dislike the song in retrospect as it resulted in her being stuck with the ‘material girl’ moniker (“talk about the media hanging on a phrase” she reflected later, “and misinterpreting the damn thing as well. God forbid irony should be understood”), but it nevertheless remains a standard-bearer for smart, self-aware pop.

There’s nothing explicitly American about Elvis’ debut single - and yet everything about it is explicitly American. This was the siren that signalled the beginning of a new, less inhibited era for post-war America and for the world. “It was so animal, so sexual,” said Robert Plant of the song, “the first musical arousal I ever had. You could see a twitch in everybody my age. All we knew about the guy was that he was cool, handsome and looked wild.” Working off the blueprint laid down by Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Presley crafted ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ into something that mourns and struts and swaggers all at once. It oozed - oozes - style, and it marks the birth of the musician as something more; as rock star, as icon.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s swampy, Southern rock sound has become synonymous with the Vietnam-era America of the late 1960s, due in no small part to politically charged songs like 1969’s ‘Fortunate Son’. ‘Run Through The Jungle’ - which, despite its title, isn’t about Vietnam - has proved to be ever more relevant as time has worn on. Built around an infectious, serpentine groove with touches of bluegrass, the song explores John Fogerty’s mounting unease at America’s gun proliferation. “I remember reading around that time that there was one gun for every man, woman and child in America, which I found staggering” Fogerty said in retrospect. “I just thought it was disturbing that it was such a jungle, for our citizens just to walk around in our own country, at least having to be aware that there are so many private guns owned by some responsible and maybe many irresponsible people.”

The High Priestess of Soul laid down more than a few essential tracks throughout her decade-spanning career, but this simple and elegant plea for freedom and understanding is a true standout. Starting as a simple piano ballad before building triumphantly to a brass band-backed crescendo, Simone - who was denied entry to Curtis Institute of Music, allegedly due to race - dreams bittersweetly but optimistically of all of the simple pleasures the world has denied her. At the end of her storied career, two days before her death, the Curtis Institute offered her an honorary degree. One can imagine her reaction.