Songs Sung Red, White, and Blue: The Stories Behind America's Best-Loved Patriotic Songs

by Ace Collins

Throughout our nation's history, patriotic songs have lifted our spirits during hard times and brought us closer to our heritage and to each other. Behind these "songs sung red, white, and blue" are unforgettable stories that will enrich your appreciation of their unique power. It's hard to imagine a single American who hasn't been touched deeply at one time or another by the songs in these pages. From the soaring chorus of "God Bless America" to the quiet poetry of "America the Beautiful," historian Ace Collins takes you inside the creation of thirty-two classic songs spanning two centuries. Military anthems like "The Marine's Hymn" and "Anchors Aweigh" share pages with other songs of war, such as the War of 1812's "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the Civil War's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Popular tunes dating back to the earliest days of our nation, such as "Yankee Doodle," are included alongside contemporary hits like "God Bless the U.S.A." Other favorites like "This Land Is Your Land" and "This Is My Country" reflect on our nation in times of peace. You'll meet a surprising and diverse cast of behind-the-scenes characters, which includes both everyday Americans -- teachers, preachers, and soldiers -- as well as celebrated songwriters like Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan. Here are songs that are as close to our hearts as any ever written -- songs that form a rousing soundtrack to America's story.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Citing his Arkansas heritage, Christy Award winner Ace Collins defines himself as a storyteller. In that capacity, Collins has authored more than eighty books for 25 different publishers that have sold more than 2.5 million copies. His catalog includes novels, biographies, children’s works as well as books on history, culture and faith. He has also been the featured speaker at the National Archives Distinguished Lecture Series, hosted a television special, been featured on every network morning TV show and does college basketball play-by-play. He is married to Kathy Collins, Chair of the Education Department at Ouachita Baptist University, and the couple has two grown sons. Collins lives in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Reviews

[Merenwen Inglorion · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read that gives concise, story-telling style biographies of impactful American composers. The way the sections are written make it so that you can read them in any order, so if you read it all the way through, certain names can get repetitious. However, it doesn't detract from the reading enough for me to knock off even a half star.

The only disappointment was that select songs contained lyrics (seemed random to me, but I assume the author/editor/publisher had a reason for the selection), but as the internet is more than able to supply the missing lyrics, it was more of a minor annoyance than anything.

[Marjorie McGuire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Including complete lyrics to all songs would have made this book more enjoyable. However, I greatly appreciated Alexa for playing almost off of them when asked! This book would be totally enchanting with a CD of all songs included. Redundant composers’ stories were also a bit disappointing (Sousa, Cohan).

[MaryAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book, although I discovered an historical error which made me wonder if there are other errors.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are going to write a book about the history of some of our most best-loved patriotic songs, be sure to include the lyrics to all the songs. Though Collins includes many versions of some songs (original, North Version/South Version, and later additions), on some of the songs, he completely leaves out the lyrics. Other than that little annoyance, I enjoyed reading about the histories of these classic songs.

[RuthAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm enjoying reading the true stories behind our patriotic songs and sharing them with my 2nd graders!

[Rebecca]

First Edition

[Lauri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this look at the history of our patriotic songs that I've sang so often.

[Kathy Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting footnotes on some of the most popular American patriotic songs, including some that I had never run into.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

great research and very interesting stories of many well loved American patriotic songs