Some of the words and melody of this beloved patriotic song are known to almost every American, and it has become, as it were, the second national anthem, an unofficial runner-up to The Star-Spangled Banner. Its tune is considerably more singable than the official anthem, and its words, which mostly extol the peaceful virtues of the country (except for a rather noble brief reference to our "heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life!"), are considerably less war-like.

The 16-measure hymn tune on which the song is based was entitled Materna and was created by composer Samuel A. Ward in 1882; the text was authored by Katherine Lee Bates.

Verse I: "O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!"

The melody itself is strictly in C major with one implied modulation to the dominant key on the line "Above the fruited plain!" The harmonization, however, like the nineteenth century landscape imagery of the words, contains those kind of chromatic alterations to be found in popular songs throughout the same century: thus, the first four measures (plus pickup beat) have a harmonic progression running [C] /// [C sharp diminished seventh] /, [G seventh] / [G] ///, [G seventh] // [F major over G] / [G seventh] /, [C] /// [G augmented] /. The next two measures recapitulate the same opening melody but are re-harmonized [C] /// [A minor seventh, diminished fifth] /, [G major over D] ////. And the next two modulating measures are stated over pedal points: [C diminished seventh over D] / [G over D] / [D ninth] / [D seventh] /, [G seventh] / [F minor sixth over A flat] / [G seventh] //.

The next four measures are designed for a full-voiced outpour of emotion ("America! America!"), and are harmonized with the basic tonic (C) and dominant (G) chords. There is a brief modulation to the subdominant (F), "and crown thy good...," via a simple ascending scale over a pedal point that creates a crescendo-ing emotion. After a return to the tonic for one measure, ("brotherhood"), the song cadences on a rising chromatic bass and a definite dominant-to-tonic finality ("From sea to shining sea").

The second verse mentions the pilgrim heritage and asks God to "mend...ev'ry flaw," and the fourth verse praises the "alabaster cities gleam."

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