I hear America singing

In honor of the upcoming Best Day Ever, I've put together something of an inauguration soundtrack. Feel free to borrow, and please post ideas for your favorite inauguration songs. The only rule is that they have to make me feel awesome about the next four (or eight!) years.

Fair warning: there is nothing cool or hip about this list. It is unabashedly sentimental and sincere. If wholehearted love of America, democracy and the Constitution isn't your thing, you might want to look away.

"I Hear America Singing:" the Inauguration Mix

Tracklist below, feel free to download the zip file HERE.

1. Nina Simone - The Times, They Are A-Changin'
2. Mavis Staples - Eyes on the Prize
3. The Submarines - The Wake-Up Song
4. Sufjan Stevens - The Star Spangled Banner
5. David Bowie - Young Americans
6. Don McLean - American Pie
7. Nina Simone - Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)
8. Bruce Springsteen - The Land of Hope and Dreams
9. Cat Stevens - Morning Has Broken
10. Peter, Paul, and Mary - If I Had a Hammer
11. Sufjan Stevens - The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders: Part I...
12. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - American Girl
13. Mavis Staples - This Little Light
14. Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
15. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - This Land is Your Land
16. Cream - I Feel Free
17. Matt Merten - Declaration of Independence
18. Sam Cooke - A Change is Gonna Come
19. Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
20. Ray Charles - America the Beautiful

Famous on the radio

Email from my aunt Linda to my mom:

"Did I hear Shoshi on NPR discussing the Oakland riots today? If not, she was a "sound-alike.""

Gosh, if ONLY I were that cool.*

*This is especially funny since earlier today E emailed me from Atlanta to say that she'd heard about the riots, and I was all, "riots? what riots? I've sort of been huddled under my covers for a week, did something happen?" And then I googled it and promptly felt chagrined and worried about the state of my state.