The Top 10 Oldies About America

Patriotic oldies music. Seems easy enough, right? Yet patriotic music behaves much like patriotism itself - it proliferates in times of crisis yet slacks off in times of plenty. This may be why the 20th century's best songs about America were written during the Great Depression and after the Seventies. (The '60s simply polarized everything, which doesn't necessarily result in good music.) Still, there are enough examples in rock's Golden Age to suggest that the feeling never goes away entirely. These songs from the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies present a full portrait of what it means (or certainly what it once meant) to be an American.