Attendees at the Great American State Fair, Thursday. U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off the celebrations for America's 250th birthday at Washington’s National Mall.Allison Robbert/The Associated Press
On July 4, 1976, Canada’s Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush performed The Star-Spangled Banner at the Bicentennial Jam held in the heartland of the U.S.A.
“Since we all know this is your birthday today, we’re gonna play your birthday song,” guitarist Marino told the crowd of 20,000 gathered at Rockford Speedway in Loves Park, Ill.
The local newspaper reported that attendees were there to hear rock bands “boogie out the bicentennial.” On the same day at Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., Elton John arrived on stage in a Lady Liberty outfit and sang Philadelphia Freedom in red, white and blue.
“From the day that I was born, I’ve waved the flag,” sang the pop star born in Middlesex, England.
Though lyricist Bernie Taupin has said Philadelphia Freedom has nothing to do with patriotism (or tennis team the Philadelphia Freedoms), the song’s sentiments aligned with a country on the upswing in the mid-1970s. The Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, and in his inaugural address a year earlier, president Gerald Ford put the trauma of the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in the past by optimistically declaring: “Our long national nightmare is over.”
More than 50 years later, though, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is shaping up as a bad dream in a country divided along party lines. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has replaced the semi-quincentennial celebrations administered by the bipartisan America250 commission and organized by the Smithsonian Institution with its own birthday party.
Trump to headline America’s 250th anniversary celebration after artists drop out
An executive order created “Freedom 250″ to schedule programming on the National Mall in Washington, effectively exiling the Smithsonian’s annual Festival of Festivals to events scattered around the country, including Los Angeles.
Thus far, the Trump-backed Great American State Fair, a 16-day event between June 25 and July 10, has been a demoralizing fiasco. Funk and soul group the Commodores, country singer Martina McBride and others pulled out early on because of the event’s political affiliations. Some states declined to participate, a Vanilla Ice concert was cancelled, and attendance has been embarrassingly low leading up to July 4.
So, on Saturday, marquee events will take place on opposite coasts, symbolic of a country split by miles and politics. While America250 presents America’s Block Party featuring Chris Stapleton, the Smashing Pumpkins and Queen Latifah at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, it appears the White House’s Freedom 250 event will be a Trump rally.
Montreal-based Marino will not be at either.
“When I played The Star-Spangled Banner in 1976, it felt like I was part of America’s family,” said the 71-year-old, who will perform at a free outdoor concert in his hometown on Aug. 7. “I don’t feel like that any more. Inclusion made the country great, but now people are at each other’s throats.”
On Aug. 23, 1976, Maureen Forrester headlined a salute to 200 years of American music at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. Backed by the Massed Bands of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines and the U.S. Armed Forces Bicentennial Band, the Canadian contralto sang George Gershwin’s Summertime, the singalong He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, and anthems God Bless America, O Canada and The Star-Spangled Banner.
Bryan Adams puts his elbows up in defiant new rocker
Today, Canadian stars are singing a different tune. On Canada Day, Bryan Adams released 51st State, a rock-music rebuke to Trump’s wackadoodle imperialism. Neil Young issued the anti-Trump protest song Big Crime in 2025.
And earlier this year, the star Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan released An American Dream?, a celebration of American music with a title that suggests disillusion.
“I grew up in awe of America. I am still in awe, but not in the same way,” the Nova Scotian wrote in the album’s liner notes. “With this repertoire, I wanted to express my admiration for the incredible creativity and tenacity of America’s immigrants and their descendants, and also my sadness in observing what seems to have been lost.”
The album, recorded with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, includes the orchestral medley Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, Aaron Copland‘s Dance Symphony, Richard Rodgers’s The Carousel Waltz and the new orchestral suite with soprano, At The Fair, by Hannigan and Bill Elliott. Within the latter piece is a version of the Billy Barnes ballad (I Stayed) Too Long at the Fair, famously recorded in 1963 by Barbra Streisand. The following lyrics are presented without comment:
“I wanted the music to play on forever / Have I stayed too long at the fair? / I wanted the clown to be constantly clever / Have I stayed too long at the fair?"
Trump’s monarchical presidency tests how far U.S. has progressed in 250 years
The U.S. national anthem also poses a question. In the first verse, composer Francis Scott Key asks: “Does that star-spangled banner yet wave?” The rest of piece answers affirmatively, but the question is always worth asking – never more so than in 2026, with a White House bent on divisiveness.
“Unity is the best medicine, but where are you going to find bipartisanship today?” Marino said. “I think it will take at least a generation for America to get back what it has lost.”
Star-spangled bangers
In honour of the United States’ 250th birthday, here are 12 songs that define the American experience.
When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1863), by Louis Lambert
Home on the Range (1873), by Daniel Kelley and Brewster Higley
Summertime (1935), by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward
God Bless America (1939), by Irving Berlin
This Land is Your Land (1940), by Woody Guthrie
America (1957), by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim
What’s Going On (1971), by Marvin Gaye, Al Cleveland and Renaldo Benson
Born in the U.S.A. (1984), by Bruce Springsteen
Work Song (Blood on the Fields), (1997) by Wynton Marsalis
The Blacker the Berry (2015), by Kendrick Lamar
This is America (2018), by Childish Gambino, Ludwig Göransson and Young Thug
An American Dream (2026), arranged by Barbara Hannigan and Bill Elliott; orchestrated by Elliott