Song List

These songs are recommended by Harmonize America because they come from the American Experience and foster the ideas of freedom, peace, justice, unity, and love of country. We hope that a core group of songs will be widely learned so en mass singings arise. 

We also encourage people to write new songs and include others, not listed, which are meaningful to share with your community and here on Harmonize America. Please contact us with new songs you feel would be good additions to our song list.

These songs are intended to be beautiful, uplifting, fostering social justice, community, love of country, active citizenship, democracy and fun. Some may touch subjects which are painful and name conflict or suffering. Others will tap into the joy of being alive, in community, and in this country. It is extremely helpful if they are easy to learn and to teach with multi-generational groups. Some songs may appeal to everyone; others may not. That is okay too.

The recommended songs are organized by subject. If most groups learn the top 20 songs for both Monthly Community Sings and for Bi-annual larger Singathons on July 4th and Martin Luther King Day, that would be great. For a few words on the power of music, see my blog post on _____

The categories are:

1.) Social Justice, 2) Love of Country, 3) Peace, 4) Songs of American Communities, 5) Freedom, 6) Songs of POC, Indigenous

Peoples, and Workers, 7) Songs for the Planet, 8) Songs about the Power of Music

1) Social Justice

• Blowin in the Wind, by Bob Dylan

• Emma’s Song, by Dr. Bernie Johnson Reagan

• If I had a Hammer, by Pete Seeger (and Lee Hays)

• This Little Light of Mine, lyrics by Avis Burgeson Christiansen and a tune written by composer and teacher Harry Dixon Loes (1895–1965) c. 1920

• We Shall Overcome, “I’ll Overcome Some Day”, a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley that was first published in 1900.

2) Love of Country                     

• America the Beautiful, Katharine Lee Bates, lyrics, and the Samuel A. Ward, music.

• Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen

• Finlandia (“This is my Song”) lyrics, tune by Sibelius.

• God Bless the USA, by Lee Greenwood

• ThePower and the Glory, by Phil Ochs (Appleseed Music, Inc.)

• Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key (lyrics), John Stafford Smith (music)

• This Land is Your Land, by Woody Guthrie

3) Peace

• Down by the Riverside (Ain’t gonna be no war no more”) (African-American folk song dating before Civil War)

• Give Peace a chance, by John Lennon

• I Ain’t Marching Any More, by Phil Ochs

• Let There be Peace on Earth, Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller, 1955, 1983, Jan-Lee Music, ASCAP

• One Love, by Bob Marley

• Where have all the Flowers Gone, 1961 Fall River Music, Inc. inspired by old Ukrainian folk song.

4) Songs of American Communities

African American

Hindi

Jewish

Native American

Latino

5) Songs about the Power of Music

• Sound Over All Waters, John Greenleaf Whittier, (lyrics) Welsh melody.

6) Songs of POC, Indigenous Peoples, and Workers

7)  Songs for the Planet

8) Songs about the Power of Music

Song books and resources

Chorus and Community, by Karen Ahlquist, (2006: U.of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago) (exploration complex social phenomenon of how community develops out of people singing together)

Everybody Says Freedom, by Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser, A History of the Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures)(1985: N.Y., W.W. Norton an Company).

The Early American Songbook, by Lee Vinson

Rise Up Singing, by Peter Blood and Mary Patterson, (1988, 1992, 2004, The Sing Out Corporation). collection of 1200 songs for group singing.

Rise Up Singing Again, by Peter Blood and Mary Patterson, second volume in the series of songs designed for group singing with general audiences.)

Wee Songs folks