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Details: This non-album single reached No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2013.

Key “America” Lyric: “I wanna see all the stars and everything in between/ I wanna buy a new heart out of a vending machine/ ‘Cause It’s a free country so baby we can do anything (Whoa).”

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Details: This was from the rapper’s eighth studio album, I Am Not a Human Being II, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in April 2013.

Key “America” Lyric: “My country tis of thee/ Sweet land of kill em all and let em die/ God Bless America/ this ol’ godless America.”

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Details: This was the opening track and lead single from Green Day’s album of the same name. American Idiot was their seventh studio album; their second to top the Billboard 200 and their first to receive a Grammy nomination for album of the year. The song reached No. 61 on the Hot 100 in October 2004 and received a Grammy nod for record of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “Don’t want to be an American idiot/ One nation controlled by the media/ Information age of hysteria/ It’s calling out to idiot America.”

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Details: Three years after covering Don McLean’s “American Pie” (for the movie The Next Best Thing), Madonna released an “American” song of her own. This was the first single from Madonna’s album of the same name. American Life was Madonna’s ninth studio album; her fifth to top the Billboard 200. The song reached No. 37 in April 2003.

Key “America” Lyric: “I’d like to express my extreme point-of-view/ I’m not a Christian and I’m not a Jew/ I’m just living out the American dream/ And I just realized that nothing is what it seems.”

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Details: This was the opening track from the alternative rock band’s third studio album, Home of the Strange. The album reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 in September 2016.

Key “America” Lyric: “I’ve been looking for so long/ In Amerika/ Throw my hands in the air!”

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Details: This was the opening track and third single from Paisley’s album of the same name. It was Paisley’s eighth studio album; his second to climb as high as No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The song reached No. 67 on the Hot 100 in February 2010.

Key “America” Lyric: “It’s a French kiss, Italian ice/ Margaritas in the moonlight/ Just another American Saturday night.”

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Details: This was the third single from Mellencamp’s eighth studio album, Scarecrow. The album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The single reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in April 1986.

Key “America” Lyric: “Some are black and some are white/ Ain’t to proud to sleep on the floor tonight/ With the blind faith of Jesus you know that they just might/ be Rockin’ in the U.S.A.”

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Details: “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” is a fan-favorite deep cut off Swift’s 2019 album Lover — although, is any song really a deep cut when it comes to the mega famous pop star? This lovesick track, set against a backdrop of dismay with the current state of affairs in the U.S., peaked at No. 49 on the Hot 100 and served as the opening number on Swift’s Eras Tour. It also inspired the title of the musician’s Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, which features Swift becoming more comfortable speaking out about politics.

Key “America” Lyric: “American glory faded before me/ Now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress.”

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Details: This was the second single from Lovato’s fourth studio album, Demi. The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200. The single reached No. 80 on the Hot 100 in August 2013.

Key “America” Lyric: “Our love was made in the U.S.A./ Made in the U.S.A.”

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Details: This was from Del Rey’s EP Paradise, which reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 in December 2012.

Key “America” Lyric: “Be young, be dope be proud/ Like an American.”

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Details: Hard to imagine a more provocative title. Leave it to Eminem. This was from The Eminem Show, the rapper’s third major-label studio album. The album topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks and received a Grammy nod for album of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “The women and men who have broke their necks for the freedom of speech the United States Government has sworn to uphold, or (Yo’, I want everybody to listen to the words of this song) so we’re told…”

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Details: Kravitz covered The Guess Who classic (which had topped the Hot 100 for three weeks in 1970) for the film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Kravitz’s version reached No. 49 on the Hot 100 and won a Grammy for best male rock vocal performance.

Key “America” Lyric: “I don’t need your war machines/ I don’t need your ghetto scenes/ Colored lights can hypnotize/ Sparkle someone else’s eyes/ Now woman, get away/ American woman, listen what I say.”

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Details: This song summarizes one of the biggest American dream success stories to ever happen in the music industry: Rihanna, who famously immigrated from Barbados to pursue stardom in the U.S. (which you could say worked out pretty well).

Key “America” Lyric: “This is the American Dream/ Young girl, hustlin’ on the other side of the ocean/ You can be anything at all in America, America.”

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Details: This was the closing track on the band’s 1976 debut album, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Key “America” Lyric: “Well, she was an American girl/ Raised on promises/ She couldn’t help thinkin’ that there was a little more to life somewhere else.”

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Details: This classic was the lead single and opening track from McLean’s sophomore album of the same name. The album topped the Billboard 200 for seven weeks and received a Grammy nomination for album of the year. The single topped the Hot 100 for four weeks in January and February 1972 and received Grammy nods for record and song of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “So bye-bye, miss American pie/ Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry.”

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Details: Hailing from one of the best-selling albums of the ’60s (the 1961 soundtrack to West Side Story), “America” — from the minds of Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein — is a raucous musical tune that simultaneously celebrates and criticizes America from the perspective of Puerto Rican immigrants.

Key “America” Lyric: “Life is all right in America” / “If you’re all-white in America.”

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Details: The title track of Khalid’s debut album, “American Teen” tied together the themes of the R&B star’s breakthrough hits like “Location” and “Young, Dumb & Broke.” 

Key “America” Lyric: “So wake me up in the spring/ While I’m high off my American dream/ We don’t always say what we mean/ It’s the lie of an American teen.”

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Details: “All-American Girl” rose to No. 27 on the Hot 100 in 2008, one of Underwood’s early career hits that solidified her as a star with staying power far beyond her tenure on American Idol.

Key “America” Lyric: “And now he’s wrapped around her finger/ She’s the center of his whole world/ And his heart belongs to that sweet little beautiful, wonderful, perfect all-American girl.”

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Details: This zesty hit reached No. 25 on the Hot 100 in August 1982. It was from Wilde’s debut album, Kim Wilde.

Key “America” Lyric: “Outside Suburbia’s sprawling everywhere/ I don’t want to go baby/ New York to East California/ There’s a new wave coming I warn you/ We’re the kids in America.”

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Details: A single from her breakthrough album Preacher’s Daughter, “American Teenager” arguably put Ethel Cain on the map. Even President Obama is a fan of the song, putting it on his year-end favorite music list in 2022.

Key “America” lyric: “The neighbor’s brother came home in a box/ But he wanted to go, so maybe it was his fault/ Another red heart taken by the American dream.”

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Details: A nostalgic tribute to the complexity and simplicity of growing up in the rural U.S., “American Kids” topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart in 2014.

Key “America” Lyric: “We were Jesus save me, blue jean baby/ Born in the USA/ Trailer park truck stop, faded little map dots/ New York to LA.”

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Details: This original song — not a cover of the Don McLean classic with the same title — was a highlight of the 2018 EP Seen It All by the singer, songwriter and transgender rights activist.

Key “America” Lyric: “Just want my piece of the American pie/ Got your slice, where is mine/ Lick my fingers on this thing called life.”

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Details: This song reached No. 4 on the Hot 100 in March 1986, Brown’s highest charting hit since “I Got You (I Feel Good)” more than 20 years earlier. It was taken from the Rocky IV soundtrack and was also featured on Brown’s 53rd (!) studio album, Gravity. The song brought Brown a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance, male.

Key “America” Lyric: “Living in America — hand to hand, across the nation Living in America/ Got to have a celebration/ You might not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway.”

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Details: One of the Beach Boys’ best-known hits, “Surfin’ U.S.A.” peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 in 1963. The single also served as the title track to the (non-surfing) Cali band’s second album.

Key “America” Lyric: “If everybody had an ocean/ Across the U.S.A./ Then everybody’d be surfin’/ Like Californ-I-A.”

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Details: This melancholy ballad was from the duo’s fourth studio album, Bookends, their first to top the Billboard 200 and their first to receive a Grammy nod for album of the year. The song was finally released as a single in the 1972, to coincide with the release of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. It peaked at No. 97 in November 1972, just after Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election. Coincidence? You decide.

Key “America” Lyric: “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, they’ve all gone to look for America.”

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Details: This ultra-catchy classic with Kanye West is easily Estelle’s biggest career hit, reaching a No. 9 peak on the Hot 100 in September 2008. It received a Grammy nod for song of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “Take me to New York, I’d love to see L.A./ I really want to come kick it with you/ You’ll be my American boy.”

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Details: This pop classic logged three weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in August and September 2009, becoming Cyrus’ highest charting hit to that point. It was featured on Cyrus’ The Time of Our Lives EP, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Key “America” Lyric: “And I got my hands up/ They’re playin’ my song/ I know I’m gonna be ok/ Yeah, it’s a party in the USA.”

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Details: Childish Gambino’s stunning “This Is America” song and video one-two punch was one of the most talked-about cultural moments in all of 2018. On the project, musician-actor Donald Glover held a mirror up to country’s rampant police brutality, gun violence, racism and class struggles, earning his first ever Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit in the process. “This Is America” won four Grammys, including record and song of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “This is America/ Don’t catch you slippin’ now/ Look at how I’m livin’ now/ Police be trippin’ now/ Yeah, this is America/ Guns in my area.”

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Details: The O.G. of patriotic pop songs, “God Bless America” dates back to 1918 when GOAT songwriter Irving Berlin first sketched out some lyrics about being grateful to the U.S.A. It wasn’t until 1938 that he finished the song and delivered it to Kate Smith, who made it an overnight sensation by performing it on her radio show.

Key “America” Lyric: “From the mountains, to the prairie, to the oceans white with foam / God bless America, my home sweet home.”

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Details: This oft-misunderstood classic was the third single from The Boss’ album of the same name. It was his seventh studio album; his second to top the Billboard 200 and his first to receive a Grammy nomination for album of the year. The song reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 in January 1985 and received a Grammy nod for record of the year.

Key “America” Lyric: “Nowhere to run/ ain’t got nowhere to go/ Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.”

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