Song Sunday

Music is a huge part of my life. I love to sing. Every day I hear a song that touches me in some way.  I sang my first solo in front of a large audience when I was 3. When I was 15 I made all-county choir. I used to sing the National Anthem for high school basketball games, and when I was 17 I sang it at the circus. When I sing I feel alive. Music has taken the backseat in my life now. Between work and school and raising a family I just don't have time to join a choir or take lessons to keep my voice trained, but I don't love music any less. In an effort to get back to my musical roots, and to blog more regularly, every Sunday I am going to try (really hard I promise) to post lyrics to a song that has touched me. Since today is Independence Day, it only seems fit to pull my favorite lyrics from one of our most patriotic songs. When I was a kid, we would sing the 1st verse of this song when we crossed into a new state on road trips, and I get all teary when they sing it at baseball games :)

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! 

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! 

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!  

God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!