Jimi Hendrix performs in front of an American Flag on Sept. 15, 1968, in Sacramento, Calif.
When it comes to music for Independence Day, there are some obvious choices: the National Anthem, the plethora of patriotic country tunes, a half-dozen songs actually called “America.”
But the Fourth of July music doesn’t stop there. In the U.S.’s nearly 200 years of red, white and blue, we’ve had pop songs about Presidents, choruses about the capital and ditties that don’t actually have anything to do with the July 4 but just sound like they might. Not every tune in our history is fit for rocking out—it’s pretty hard to party to “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain”—but we’ve pulled together a playlist of American tunes (including “American Tune”) to keep your Fourth going.
Click through for music videos, or skip to the last slide for our Spotify playlist.
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