Special Reports

Three Broadway Songs to Get You Pumped Up for the Fourth of July

Let loose your inner patriot with music from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Friedman, and Sherman Edwards.

Editorial Staff
New York City
If the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on DOMA and Prop. 8 have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes our country can be kind of awesome. Of course, the theater community has known that all along.

Here are three great America-themed songs from the musical theater canon to get you prepped for an all-American day of brats, booze, and Broadway.

Relive the founding of our nation this fourth of July with Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards’ Tony Award-winning Best Musical, 1776. Nothing could be more patriotic than listening to a musical that spouts nuggets of wisdom like, “One useless man is called a disgrace, two are called a law firm, and three or more become a Congress.”

Celebrate your holiday with the angry young rock stars of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman’s musical about the rise and fall of America’s polarizing seventh president. What better way to celebrate the birth of our great country than with a little populism (yea, yea)? We guarantee that your July 4th will get all sexypants, too.

If you like your founding fathers a little more hip-hop and a little less rock ‘n’ roll, get in the celebratory spirit with a song from Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brand-new musical The Hamilton Mixtape, which follows the life of American immigrant and George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Check out the video for cameos from the President and First Lady themselves.