The best Veterans Day songs

This spoken-word song, the title-track on Cash’s 47th album, is a heartfelt nod to the patriotism that persisted during the Watergate scandal.

Mellencamp sings honestly about racial inequality in America, a patriotic gesture that asks America to live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all.

Diamond’s sweet crooning gets to the core of what America is at its best: a shiny refuge for the huddled masses that yearn to be free.

As this song describes, there’s nothing more American than searching for the county’s soul on the open road.

If you like American music (baby), then you should bump this gentle acoustic ode to a quintessentially American dilemma: not having a date for prom.

No musician since has injected such raw iconoclasm into the National Anthem.

In 1944, this folk classic foretold the fall of the Axis powers at the hands of “the great destroyer / made of fire, flesh, and steel.” (That’s us.)

This angst-laden number was featured in the film Clueless, and is sure to resonate with the sulky, sneering kids of America for a long time yet.

Despite many attempts at clarification, McLean refuses to explain what this song’s lyrics mean: You might say such explanation-seekers are driving their Chevys to the levy and finding it dry.

In 1969, this seething country song struck a chord with the nation’s good ol’ boys, providing a counterpoint to the idealism of the Summer of Love.