I don't really know how best to pick a song to go with the Fourth of July, or Independence Day in the US. Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen is kind of an obvious choice and the nationalists love it, but the lyrics are about a guy who goes to fight (in Vietnam) for his country and comes back and no one wants him. It's not really the patriotic song people think it is. And Springsteen sang for the common man, not the soldier or the politician, but both latched onto that poorly-aged line about going off to kill the "yellow man".

American Girl by Tom Petty was a top contender, but I'd just posted Free Fallin' not too long ago, and I haven't duplicated any artists yet, unless you count that live video (I don't, and when I make the playlist post, it won't be counted, but the two called Story of My Life will both be counted). Then there was The Last of the American Girls by Green Day, and I haven't posted Green Day yet, but I think I can do better by them. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore 21st Century Breakdown (not everybody does), but there are better songs on that album and even elsewhere in the band's career. The Static Age for one on the album, and When I Come Around from Dookie, which remains a fan favourite.

But no, I saw American Pie on YouTube the other day, and said "yeah, that's the song I'll post for the Americans on their day." It's not sarcastic, per se. Well, it is, but it's not mean-spirited — I'll get to that. I mean, it's a little misleading. Coming to that. But no, it's as American as grilling hot dogs on a hot summer day. This is kind of a flip-side to the John Mellencamp song Hotdogs and Hamburgers I posted early on in the comm. That song wants you to think it's an Americana song just by looking at the name, but as soon as he starts, you can tell that it's not and you can probably see where it's going. Stevie Wonder could see where it was going. But 55 years on, American Pie still resonates as one of the great Americana songs, even though it's not about that at all.

American Pie is about "the day the music died," which was February 3, 1959, and if you were an elder Boomer or younger Silent Generation, that day was like your 9/11. That was the day Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper got on a plane, which crashed, killing the three of them. They were big in 1950s rock, and for the loss of them — which Millennials and younger would be forgiven for not knowing — to be declared "the day the music died," really highlights how important music, and their music was to the teenagers of the 1950s. I've asked my mother about it, but she was four when "the music died" and while she did have some Buddy Holly records (I think), it wasn't really her scene. Her music was the 1960s and 1970s, like mine was the 1980s and 1990s (and the 2000s, since that was when I fell in love and got married). Anyway, it didn't really affect her. And she's in her 70s now. Those who were affected by that tragedy... there aren't many of them left. There are a lot more who remember American Pie.

It's like I Go Back by Kenny Chesney. I'm not a big country fan, but, there have been some pretty good country songs to my ears, mostly from the 1990s and 2000s, what "real" or "true" country fans call "pop country." I have a brother who kinda straddles this fence, "pop country" is his generation's country music and he loves it because he grew up in it, but he also loves the classics. He introduced me to Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks (the latter of whom is just over the "southern rock" fence from Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were rock with a dash of country, whereas Brooks was country with a dash of rock) and I always kinda appreciated some of that "pop country." Anyway, Chesney writes about the songs (rock songs at that!) that he grew up with that defined his childhood and teen years, and how Only the Good Die Young stops him in his tracks — because while Billy Joel was singing about trying to get in a Catholic girl's pants (and she wouldn't let him), he associates it with a childhood friend who died when they were in high school. That's not at all what Billy Joel was singing about, but that's what people associated the music with.

I don't believe the music has "died" since 1959, though you could say the end of MTV was the start of the death of rock music in the west. Anime was the "MTV" of the east, so rock music was picking up in the east as it was winding down in the west. So I don't think rock ever died. Plus, the old rockers are still kicking in the west. They're still releasing albums. There are new western rock bands worth looking at, and I can't wait to share them with you all. I've been focusing on old stuff, the only really new stuff has been either Japanese rock, or pop music (thinking of the Lady Gaga song). Oh, and American Pie was the last song released for Rockband 3, implying the music died when that game stopped receiving (official) updates. Or at the very least, they thought it was fitting.

And I do not think music will ever die again. We simply have too much of it for that to happen. In the 1950s, you had a lot fewer choices. Even if your three favourite artists were killed in one day in an accident like "the day the music died," there are simply too many other great musicians and bands out there for it to be much more than a big tragedy. Sure, it would be a tragedy, but it wouldn't be the end of anything.

So, get out there and enjoy some music. And if you got a song to post today, go ahead and post it.