For this Veterans Day, we honor our soldiers with these songs from six American wars that reflect the experience of veterans and their loved ones.

• I Just Came Back From A War Darryl Worley [Iraq War]
• I’m In Korea J.B. Lenoir [Korean War]
• Over There Arthur Fields [World War I]
• Sarge Rick Lance [Vietnam War]
• Somebody’s Darling Kathy Mattea [Civil War]
• Sullivan Caroline’s Spine [WW II]

These songs were selected from GreenBookofSongs.com® categories including “Holidays: Memorial and Veterans Days”, specific and general “War” categories, and “Patriotism” and “Countries:  America”.

For Hispanic Heritage Month, which begins annually on September 15, GreenBookofSongs.com ® has selected five songs about famous Hispanics in history. While there are numerous leaders to choose from — elected officials, scientists, social activists, actors and musicians – we focused on heroes whose stories translate well into song.

Pancho Villa Billy Walker

Villa may have been a bandit before becoming a revolutionary leader, but Walker’s song sees him through the eyes of the Mexican villagers whose cause he championed: “He put down gold and silver, and food for us to eat / Said, ‘I didn’t come to harm you,’ and our hearts fell at his feet.”

Viva Zapata! Andy Irvine

You might not expect a Celtic folk singer to write a song of praise for a Mexican revolutionary, but Zapata’s commitment to the poor transcends such divisions. Using Zapata’s famous saying, Irvine captures his heroism well: “Isn’t it better to die on your feet than live upon your knees? / 400 years of bondage, that’s enough.”

Manos, Huesos Y Sang / Hands, Bones And Blood (Waltz For Frida Kahlo) Tish Hinojosa

Kahlo expressed through her brilliant art the tragedy of her life, marked by physical pain and heartbreak. Hinojosa portrays both the beauty and sorrow in this haunting song: “Thousand words painted by love’s broken stroke…Women would dream by your name.”

Picasso And Me Gretchen Peters

Picasso’s life included not just groundbreaking art but also many romantic partners, so it is fitting that Peters tells his story from a lover’s point of view. She watches him struggle with the conventional art world, which can’t yet grasp his genius: “Who made this game, who made these rules?…They’ll never understand him, they don’t know what I know.”

Roberto Clemente Phil Coley

The first Latin American elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Clemente was also a humanitarian. He died tragically in a plane crash while delivering relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. This story song asks us to recognize both aspects of Clemente’s heroism: “He threw out runners from the outfield while on his knees / Though his right arm was great, honor all of him, please.”

On this anniversary of 9/11, we wanted to share with our educator subscribers a program designed to teach children about that tragic day. The September 11 Educational Program, located at LearnAbout9-11.org, uses a personal approach. It tells stories from the perspective of those whose lives were directly affected to give children a point of entry, a way of understanding an event many are too young to remember. The site offers discussion questions, a presentation, and other teaching tools.

GreenBookofSongs.com® has catalogued nearly 70 songs about 9/11, several of which use a similar story-telling approach to convey the sadness and shock that gripped us all. Here are three examples of songs that might be used in a classroom:

The Bravest Tom Paxton

This frequently political folk artist leaves politics aside in this song about a man who worked in the Twin Towers. He escapes down the stairs, hastened by firefighters making their way up. Saved by heroes who died, he attends their funerals to honor their sacrifice. “They must have seen it coming / When they turned to face the fire / They sent us down to safety / Then they kept on climbing higher.”

Let’s Roll Neil Young

On Flight 93, ordinary individuals took extraordinary actions, banding together to resist the terrorists who had hijacked their plane. Young speaks here as one of those passengers, who ends a cell phone call to his wife and turns toward an uninvited fight. “I know I said I love you / I know you know it’s true / I’ve got to put the phone down / And do what we got to do.”

Land Of The Living Lucy Kaplansky

This New York-based folk artist describes a different aspect of life in the city in the aftermath of the attacks. As fires continue to burn, she meets a Muslim taxi driver who has been beaten up in blind revenge. “I’m not one of them, no matter what they say / I’m just worried about my family / My wife’s in the house and she’s scared to leave.”

Find more in our category DANGER & DISASTER:  9-11-2001.

In the four years since Hurricane Katrina, we’ve catalogued more than 40 songs about the disaster and its aftermath. Artists of every genre have written about the storm and the suffering it caused.

On this anniversary, we look at three common ways that popular songs have told the story of Katrina: the personal, the political and the practical. The examples below range in focus from story-telling to political anger to survival.

1. The personal

Big Easy Raphael Saadiq

This is the tragedy of Katrina from the view of someone left to wonder whether his lover is dead or alive. He hasn’t seen her in two days; is she one of the many floating in the river? “Somebody please tell me what’s going wrong / They say them levees broke, and my baby’s gone.”

Any Other Day Wyclef Jean featuring Norah Jones

This heartbreaking cry for help vividly recalls the images we watched in horror on television: “I hear the engine on the boat / But y’all can’t see me waving the flag / Somebody please wave the flag.”

2. The political

Wide Awake Audioslave

Audioslave faults the government not only for failing those at home while fighting overseas, but also for placing the burden on America’s most vulnerable: “The poor and undefended left behind / While you’re somewhere trading lives for oil.”

Gov Did Nothin’ John Butler Trio

Similar themes here - a government distracted by war ignores the neediest as the death toll rises. The message of racial inequality is more clearly drawn: “Do you really think the gov would do nothin’ if all those people were white?”

 3. The practical

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On Jimmy Buffett

After the struggle of the storm came the struggle to go on. Buffett’s lyrics are for them: “Don’t try to explain it, just nod your head / Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

Houston R.E.M.

Some have moved on, literally. This song is about relocating to Houston, ready or not. “And some things, they fall to the wayside / Their memory is yet to be still / Belief has not yet filled me / And so I am put to the test.”

There should be a fourth perspective here — songs of rebuilding and renewal. Maybe next year.

The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund still needs your help!

We’re excited about two new additions to the GreenBookofSongs.com® songs-by-subject search tools. In response to popular demand, we’ve now made it possible to sort search results by one or more popular genres and/or by “hit” status as well.

Users can now choose to see all songs about a particular subject, or select Pop, Rock, Country, R&B or Hip Hop songs. Subscribers may also choose to see only songs that were hits, based on widely used standards of national popularity. 

For now, these tools are in ”beta” because tagging of the database is not yet complete. This means that filtered results will reflect only a portion of what’s available by searching the full category.

Still, Green Book users will now be able to get lists of songs matching specific needs even more quickly. For example, are you looking for songs for the Fourth of July? In addition to 109 songs in our category Holidays: Fourth Of July, you can instantly find 82 Country songs about America in Countries: America, or 60 Rock songs in the category Freedom.

We are continually tagging more data to improve filter search results, and we plan to feature filtering by more of the 31 genres included in the GreenBookofSongs.com® database. Stay tuned as we add new features and new categories to make searching for songs by subject even easier!

It’s the nature of life. We’re meant to lose our dads, rather than the other way around. That makes any Father’s Day the right time to thank Dad for all he did. 

If you don’t know how to say it, GreenBookofSongs.com® has found ten songs that will say it for you. They’re about time spent together and good advice, about learning to be a good person from the example he set. They’re the ten greatest ways to tell him you care.

10. Best Day, The George Strait

A fishing trip, teaching us how to drive - it’s how dads love us. If you remember doing things with your dad, this is your song: “Been dreaming day and night about the fun we’ll have / Just me and you doin’ what I’ve always wanted to.”

9. Best Day, The Taylor Swift

Same Country genre as George Strait’s song, even the same title - but Swift brings a daughter’s perspective to growing up with Dad. “I didn’t know if you knew, so I’m takin’ this chance to say / That I had the best day with you today.”

8. Walkin’ In My Father’s Shoes Craig Morgan

The best tribute to Dad is wanting to be like him - and acknowledging that’s no easy task: “I’m walkin’ in my father’s shoes / He’s never let me down, that’s a lot to live up to.”

7. Roots Of My Raising Merle Haggard

Dads teach by the example of their kindness and good character. This song is as simple and powerful as the man it describes: “A quiet man whose gentle voice was seldom heard / Who could borrow money at the bank simply on his word.”

6. Let Me Be The Man My Daddy Was Chi-Lites

Thank your dad for his hard work, for his sacrifices, and for teaching you how to be a good man: “Please let me raise my children right / And be the man my daddy was.”

5. Leader Of The Band Dan Fogelberg

Each dad gives his child something of himself. This one shared himself through music, and Fogelberg repays him with a song: “My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man / I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band.”

4. Forty Again John Berry

What would you give to enjoy those hours together all over again? Berry wishes he could go back in time: “He would be young, and I would be ten / We would go fishing, throw an old ball around…Just for today, I wish he was forty again.”

3. Daddy’s Little Girl Karla Bonoff

Tell Dad you cherish each moment together, and that his presence will be with you always: “When I look in the face of the child, I see you in her eyes / And we’re all so much the same / We’ll carry on your name.”

2. Dance With My Father Luther Vandross

The sharing, the time spent together — it’s about knowing you were loved. Let your dad know you love him too. Play this song, and dance. “If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him / I’d play a song that would never, ever end.”

1. The Living Years Mike + The Mechanics

Maybe you and your dad fought, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. Whatever your relationship has been, though, don’t let this Father’s Day go by: “Say it loud, say it clear…I just wish I could have told him in the living years.”

Five Metal Songs of Nuclear Destruction

North Korea’s successful underground test of a nuclear weapon harkens chilling memories of the Cold War. As terrifying as the arms race was for the world, though, it was fodder for songwriters of all genres.

Not surprisingly, metal bands have excelled at painting bleak pictures of nuclear holocaust, full of accusation and admonishment. Here are five examples from the GreenBookofSongs.com® database:

Fight Fire With Fire Metallica

More than one Metallica song covers nuclear destruction. We open with this one because it’s so focused. It’s not about blame, it’s not about protest. The song is just about doom, and it won’t be pretty: “Soon to fill our lungs the hot winds of death / The gods are laughing, so take your last breath.”

Electric Funeral Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath gets graphic with a warning even warriors can’t ignore: “Buildings crashing down / To Earth’s crackling ground / Rivers turn to wood / Eyes melt into blood.” There’s no escape, and hell opens for those who destroyed the planet.

Final Six Slayer

Slayer is here to help everyone vividly imagine what Armageddon looks like. “A stream is poisoned by the dead / In the ghostly light debris of war.” And they know who’s responsible, too: “Mankind owes his pain to hell / As he brings the end upon himself.” Despite Biblical images, there’s no foisting blame on the devil for this.

When The Walls Came Tumbling Down Def Leppard

This song also wonders whether the end of the world is “the revenge of the gods” or “the aftermath of the radium bomb.” Maybe it’s both, because the result looks the same, with “tidal waves and open graves” as humanity’s fate.

One World Anthrax

After 9/11, this band’s name became anathema. But their message was actually anti-war in this Star Wars-era song. Russians are “only people like us” who “don’t love their lives less.” “Ignorance is no excuse for violence / No one wins.” Consider thrash metal the new instrument for peace!

The U.S. Labor Department reported last week that unemployment has climbed to 8.9% — much higher if you include those who have given up looking for work. Pretty bleak numbers, and of course, numbers don’t tell the story.

GreenBookofSongs.com® selected ten songs tell it all — the frustration, the anger, the despair. These songs reach all the way from the Great Depression to the current crisis, from steel mills and auto assembly lines to coal mines and farms, and show in ways statistics never can that some things about job loss are timeless.

10. Unemployment J.J. Cale

Just the bare basics of unemployment in this song — beating the pavement, compromising on pay, settling for any kind of honest work. “You won’t have to pay me overtime…You just tell me what time and where at.” First loss: expectations.

9. Allentown Billy Joel 

Factories close, young people move on, towns dissolve. As Joel puts it, “Every child had a pretty good shot / To get at least as far as their old man got / But something happened on the way to that place.” Casualty of hard times: the American Dream.

8.  Johnny 99 Bruce Springsteen

If we haven’t seen an increase in crime yet, maybe it’s coming. Springsteen’s protaganist can’t find a job, loses his home to the bank and has “debts no honest man could pay.” End result: acts of desperation that lead to jail.

7. Cafe On The Corner Sawyer Brown

“Johnny 99″ that crime doesn’t pay, but for the farmer in this song, ”Neither does farmin’ these days.” The local cafe is now staffed by men who long for the fields. People who lose careers may find other work, but the habits and rhythms of a lifetime are gone for good. Price paid: sense of belonging and place.

6. Computer Took My Job Maurice John Vaughn

When 20 years on the job are no match for a computer and “your best just ain’t good enough,” self-worth is compromised. This classic blues song makes the point that the unemployed aren’t asking for a handout — they just need a job. Wanted: self-respect.

5. Shuttin’ Detroit Down John Rich

Rich’s recent release speaks to the class antagonisms that result when “DC’s bailing out the bankers as the farmers auction ground,” and bosses collect bonuses while assembly lines grind to a halt. Another cost of unemployment: political unrest.

4. Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) Styx

This powerful song expresses not just the urgency of the job seeker — “Make me an offer that I can’t refuse / Make me respectable, man” — but also the raw determination to get out of the unemployment line, whatever the odds. It’s too close to desperation to be a  song of hope, but it’s got the essential American ingredient: refusal to quit.

3. Fred Jones Part 2 Ben Folds

This timely song about losing a newspaper job crystalizes that moment when it all slips away: “Twenty-five years he’s worked at the paper / A man’s here to take him downstairs / And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, it’s time.” No party, no parting, just a box of belongings and an escort out of the building. The emotions of getting fired: shock and loss.

2. Brother, Can You Spare A Dime Bing Crosby

Perhaps the quintessential song of the Great Depression, these lyrics are the cry of a generation that raised skyscrapers, built railroads and won a World War, but found themselves left with breadlines and despair. “They used to tell me I was building a dream / With peace and glory ahead / Why should I be standing in line / Just waiting for bread?” It reminds us: this is how bad it could get.

1. Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel

You may want to grab a hankie before listening to this heartbreaking duet by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, but that’s not why it’s our choice for the most important song about unemployment. Gabriel voices the despair of the man who has lost his place: “I’ve changed my face, I’ve changed my name / But no one wants you when you lose.” At each turn, Bush offers the comfort of love: “You’re not the only one…You still have us…We’re proud of who you are.” When the world is crumbling around you, family is the best and sometimes only refuge. And that’s the final characteristic of unemployment: what’s left is sometimes what matters most.

If you think Mother’s Day songs are only for the traditional, mom-and-apple pie kind of family, think again! According to a review of Mother’s Day songs done by GreenBookofSongs.com® for Katherine Lewis’ Working Moms Blog (WorkingMoms.About.com), there’s a selection of positive, loving songs for the mom in every kind of family.

Single moms are getting their due in songs like Fantasia’s “Baby Mama” and Clint Black’s “The Strong One”, which salute young mothers taking care of their children on their own. Songs like 2Pac’s “Dear Mama” and Jay-Z’s “Anything” express gratitude for moms who brought their sons through poverty and the challenges of the inner city, while O.C. Smith’s “Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp” - well, the title says it all.

These days, there’s financial stress in the suburbs too. Some dads are out of work and caring for the kids, while Mom is on the job. That’s the scenario of Lonestar’s “Mr. Mom”, who learns first-hand about the hard work stay-at-home moms do every day.

For adoptive moms (and dads too), there’s “I Am Your Mother Too”, by Keb’ Mo’ with Brenda Russell. For birth mothers who choose adoption, there’s Michelle Wright’s “He Would Be Sixteen”, in which a birth mom does what’s best for her baby, but never forgets him. And here’s one in praise of the step-mom: Sufjan Stevens’ self-explanatory “Decator, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Step Mother!”

There’s even a song for families dealing with illness. Craig Morgan’s “Tough” is an ode to a mother with cancer who continues to care for her husband and kids.

So whatever style of family you have, whatever role your mother fills, there’s a way to say thanks with a song. There’s no excuse not to follow Al Jolson’s timeless advice and “Remember Mother’s Day”!

Here’s the Top 10:

• Anything Jay-Z
• Baby Mama Fantasia
• Dear Mama 2Pac
• Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Step Mother! Sufjan Stevens
• He Would Be Sixteen Michelle Wright
• I Am Your Mother Too Keb’ Mo’ with Brenda Russell
• Mr. Mom Lonestar
• Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp O.C. Smith
• Strong One, The Clint Black
• Tough Craig Morgan

We selected a sample from our Pirates category to see how closely the traditional image of pirates matches the modern reality.

• Captain Hook’s Waltz Original Cast/Peter Pan
• Captain Kidd Carl Peterson
• Coasts Of High Barbary David Coffin
• Dead Man’s Chest Pirates Of New Providence
• Jolly Roger Roger McGuinn
• Rollicking Band Of Pirates We Broadway Cast/Pirates of Penzance

Captain Hook is comical, the friendly pirates of Penzance are sympathic, and most of us have sung the refrain from “Dead Man’s Chest”, “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” But listen to the lyrics of “Dead Man’s Chest”, and you’ll hear about pirates’ axes, knives and bloody victims. “Captain Kidd” knows he’s damned to hell, and “Jolly Roger” features an unrepentant buccaneer greedy for gold. Romanticized, perhaps, but they’re an unsavory bunch of cutthroats.

Still, I haven’t come across any songs about Somali fishermen who turn to pirating vast container ships. I’ll be interested to see how modern songwriters portray of pirates in the 21st century.