When he was fifteen John H. Mercer turned out his first song, a jazzy little thing he called `` Sister Susie, Strut Your Stuff ''.

At various times in the more than 100 years that have elapsed since the song was written, particularly during the John F. Kennedy administration, there have been efforts to give " America the Beautiful " legal status either as a national hymn, or as a national anthem equal to, or in place of, " The Star-Spangled Banner ", but so far this has not succeeded.

William Walker ( composer ) | William Walker, the composer who first joined John Newton's verses to " New Britain ", to create the song that has become " Amazing Grace "

The U. S. Library of Congress has a collection of 3, 000 versions of and songs inspired by " Amazing Grace ", some of which were first-time recordings by folklorists Alan and John Lomax, a father and son team who in 1932 traveled thousands of miles across the South to capture the different regional styles of the song.

* The Star-Spangled Banner's tune was adapted from an old English drinking song by John Stafford Smith called " To Anacreon in Heaven ".

The song plays during the opening credits for the highly acclaimed John Ford movie " My Darling Clementine.

On Capp's exit, Lennon sang an impromptu version of his Ballad of John and Yoko song with a slightly revised, but nonetheless prophetic lyric: " Christ, you know it ain't easy / You know how hard it can be / The way things are goin ' / They're gonna crucify Capp!

Among other composers who set Housman songs were John Ireland ( song cycle, Land of Lost Content ), Michael Head ( e. g. ' Ludlow Fair '), Graham Peel ( a famous version of ' In Summertime on Bredon '), Ian Venables ( Songs of Eternity and Sorrow ), and the American Samuel Barber ( e. g. ' With rue my heart is laden ').

* Big Dipper ( Elton John song ), a 1978 song by Elton John

When the word ballad appears in the title of a song, as for example in The Beatles's " The Ballad of John and Yoko " or Billy Joel's " The Ballad of Billy the Kid ", the folk-music sense is generally implied.

* " Sunday Bloody Sunday ", a 1972 song from the album Some Time in New York City, by John Lennon & Yoko Ono

The song is heard in a choral rendition by Ken Darby in the 1968 John Wayne film, The Green Berets, based on Moore's book.

The John Lennon album Some Time in New York City features a song entitled " Sunday Bloody Sunday ", inspired by the incident, as well as the song " The Luck of the Irish ", which dealt more with the Irish conflict in general.

* The song " Centerfield " by John Fogerty includes the line " Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine, watchin ' it from the bench.

*" Calypso " ( song ), a 1975 song by John Denver written as a tribute to Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his research ship Calypso

Of the previously unreleased songs, " Down to the Wire " features the New Orleans pianist Dr. John with Buffalo Springfield on an item from their shelved Stampede album ; " Love Is a Rose " was a minor hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1975 ; " Winterlong " received a cover by Pixies on the Neil Young tribute album from 1989, The Bridge ; and " Campaigner " is a Young song critical of Richard Nixon.

At the same time the non-album single " John, I ’ m Only Dancing ", and " All the Young Dudes ", a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople, became UK hits.

In 1963, Bob Dylan was set to appear on the show, but network censors rejected the song he wanted to perform, " Talkin ' John Birch Paranoid Blues ", as potentially libelous to the John Birch Society.

Versions of this song were recorded by June Tabor, The Skids, and The Pogues as well as by Tommy Makem, Liam Clancy, and John Williamson.

When the song transitions into the montuno section, the bongo player picks up a large hand held cowbell called the bongo bell.

* The Noah and the Whale song " Our Window " makes use of a piano prepared with " screws, ping pong balls and tooth picks.

According to Bill Lawrence, " Christa picks so much of the music for the show that a lot of the writers and actors don't even go to me anymore when they have a song.

* Jethro Tull – song – " Locomotive Breath "-" He picks up Gideon's Bible, open at page one.

The only Beach Boys member to be appear in " It's Gettin ' Late " is Brian Wilson, who has a cameo at the end of the video where he picks up a seashell and listens to the song, " California Calling ".

Green Day have continued to play the song live ( where the band picks members out of the audience to play its instruments ).

Pino Palladino embellished the song with a solo fretless bassline, adding an edgy funk groove to the acoustic beginning of the song, leading to an instrumental bridge, where the song picks up in the speed of the beat with more electric instruments.

Although no lawsuit was ever filed, Palm maintained that he still deserved credit for the guitar riff: " I could show you interviews in which Dexter Holland outright admits that he took that riff from my song and used it in his song ," he asserted in 2000, " In the rap world, when something like that is taken as a sample, they pay for it the same way I pay for guitar strings and picks.

*" 4 am ", a song written by Mike Barson and Graham McPherson, recorded first by Suggs on his 1995 album The Lone Ranger and then by Madness on the 1999 LP Wonderful, also picks up the story of Terry and Julie some years later.

Towards the end, as the song picks up, it shows Jordan driving off in the back seat with a man and a woman in the front seat ( presumably Jordan's mother and stepfather ), as Wes watches the car sadly.

In his review for Rainbow, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic named the song one the album's top three picks.

Elisabeth Houghton whispers the lyrics to the song and this brings in a presumably mellow voice ( Actually an electric guitar solo modified to sound so ) throughout the slow centre of the track, and as the music picks up, Elisabeth whispers again and the soft moans of a girl enters.

Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine named the song one of his top two picks from Emotions, while Jon Pareles from The New York Times called it an " uplifting pop-gospel homily ".

In 2010, WAXQ started a new version of Two for Tuesdays, where they pick a song, and the audience picks a song online.

On his 1996 album The Artful Dodger, singer / songwriter Ian Hunter included the song Resurrection Mary, in which a driver in or near Chicago picks up a beautiful young woman with an " incandescent glow " who asks him " I'm tryin ' to get to Heaven / Can you tell me where that is?

The film version of the song picks up shortly after Pink's transformation into the Dictator.

The album confused fans because after the last track ( track 10 ), the CD skips and picks up at track 75, which began with strange buzzing noises and slowly evolved into another song.

When the door is finally opened, the musicians have left, and the first iteration of the band picks up their instruments to finish playing the song.

On a triple album where " nearly every song is excellent ", Allmusic picks " All Things Must Pass " as one of five standout tracks ( or AMG Track Picks ).

'', and Berman sifted out all alone on the stage with the ambling chords and beat of the song just whispering into being.

Today, in the era of the integrated musical when an individual song must contribute to the over-all development of the show, it is understandable that a song, no matter how excellent it may be on its own terms, is cut out because it does not perform the function required of it.

He also performed the song on Red Sox opening day at Fenway Park in 2003, though the game was eventually rained out.

A tradition at one time observed on this day in England was to leave out soul cakes and sing a song for the dead.

The show's best-known and Sondheim's biggest hit song was almost an afterthought, written several days before the start of out of town tryouts.

Mr Judge's great innovation is to transform the Liebeslieder Singers from the evening-dressed, after-dinner line-up into 18th century ghosts weaving in and out of the action ... But Mr Judge's other great realisation is that, in Sondheim, the lyrics are not an adornment to a song but their very essence: understand them and the show will flow.

PolyGram ( London Records ' parent company at that time ) had pressed a number of promo singles and 12 " versions of the song, sending them out to both radio and record stores in the UK.

During the Orioles ' heyday in the 1970s, a club song, appropriately titled " Orioles Magic ", was composed, and played when the team ran out until Opening Day of 2008.

* The song " To the Dogs or Whoever " by Josh Ritter includes the stanza " Was it Casey Jones or Casey at the Bat who died out of pride and got famous for that?

It was especially noted that the birth and death of some notable persons coincided with separate appearances of the comet, such as with writers Mark Twain ( who correctly speculated that he'd " go out with the comet " in 1910 ) and Eudora Welty, to whose life Mary Chapin Carpenter dedicated the song Halley Came to Jackson.

After quarterback Jay Cutler came down with an injury in 2011, where the Bears lost 5 straight games and was knocked out of playoff contention, his absence was bemoaned in a song parodying the hit Baby Come Back as a parody called Cutty Come Back.

When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song.

When " Too Drunk to Fuck " came out in May 1981, the song caused much controversy in the UK as the BBC feared the single would reach the Top 30 ; this would require a mention of the song on Top of the Pops.

In March 1982, the month before Paul Schrader's film Cat People came out, Bowie's title song, " Cat People ( Putting Out Fire )", was released as a single, becoming a minor US hit and entering the UK top 30.

Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in traditional song collecting, and a number of outstanding composers carried out their own field work on traditional song.

The best known song to come out of the series was " Four Feather Falls ", sung in some episodes by Michael Holliday in the style of Bing Crosby.

It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire – who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired – into performing a series of song and dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film.

1, No. 2, July 1970, A Charlton Publication ) attributes this song to Susan Heather ( a pseudonym used by Marian B. Yarneall ), ( c ) 1952, 1965 by Mamy Music Corp out of Paoli, Pa. Later references show copyrights held by Gaylord Program Services, Inc. out of Nashville, TN, but this may be because Gaylord holds the copyrights for " Hee Haw.

Different accounts on how " Please, Please, Please " came together vary, one story from Etta James stated that during her first meeting with Brown in Macon, Brown " used to carry around an old tattered napkin with him, because Little Richard had written the words, ' please, please, please ' on it and James was determined to make a song out of it ...".

He recorded the song " Because ", which was made famous by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark's 1986 musical, Time ( the single is out of print ).