When sketching out the songs for AMERICA: 250 Years Young, I knew the album needed a seminal patriotic anthem as its grand finale.

The initial shortlist was obvious, but each had its hurdles. The Star-Spangled Banner felt a bit too predictable. My Country ‘Tis of Thee boasts compelling lyrics, but the very simple melody borrows a bit too much from our friends across the pond. Even the beloved God Bless America is surprisingly brief, relying on a single verse to carry its famous chorus.

Leaving the perfect choice: America the Beautiful.

A Song in Search of a Tune

The song’s journey began in 1893 when Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, boarded a train bound for Colorado. The cross-country trip left her spellbound. She marveled at the futuristic “alabaster cities” of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, traveled through “amber waves of grain” in Kansas, and stood atop Pikes Peak to witness “purple mountain majesties” firsthand. Inspired from her trip atop that mountain, she scribbled down the poem in her hotel room that very night.

First published in a church periodical on July 4, 1895, the poem was an instant sensation. Over the next few years it was reprinted nationwide, and by 1900 at least 75 different melodies had been paired with Bates’s words. But none of them stuck. It remained a masterpiece in search of its definitive sound.

The Matchmaker

The music we love today actually predates the poem. In 1882, the organist Samuel A. Ward was crossing New York Harbor when a melody to accompany the 16th-century hymn O Mother Dear, Jerusalem suddenly struck him. Lacking paper, he famously jotted the notes to Materna onto his shirt cuff so they wouldn’t fade before he reached home.

The magic happened in 1904 when Baptist preacher Clarence Barbour realized Bates’s spiritual poem required a hymn-like majesty rather than a popular secular tune. He married Ward’s melody to Bates’s words, publishing the combination in 1910. And no one has looked for an alternative tune since.

Crafting the Finale

While the first verse of America the Beautiful is sewn into our national fabric, hearing all of the verses together reveals an inspired testament both to the landscape of the nation as well as the enduring American spirit. Deciding to include all four was one of the easiest decisions on the entire album.

In contrast, this piece ended up being the most challenging arrangement to write of all songs on the album, with the ending itself going through several revisions before finding its final shape. The problem came not from the technology, but from a desire to do this iconic anthem justice. I hope the final result resonates with you from sea to shining sea.

And Happy 250th, America.