Listen Now: A Memorial Day Playlist

On the last Monday of May, the United States honors and remembers its military personnel who died in service to their country. Originally, the day was conceived as a way to commemorate the more than 600,000 who died during the Civil War. In the decades since, it has become a day to memorialize those lost in all of America's global wars and conflicts.

And though many take the three-day weekend as a holiday to plan barbecues and get-togethers, it's a more solemn occasion for those who have lost friends or family. This year, country singer Jamey Johnson, a former Marine corporal, is debuting his new single, "21 Guns," on PBS' National Memorial Day Concert on Sunday, May 26.

"I wrote it because I have gone to too many funerals of Marines I served with that were just too young," Johnson said in a statement. "When they die young, you always remember them that way, which is unfair. Guys that heroic that die that young deserve the right to grow old and they didn't get to."

He's not the only artist who has written songs in remembrance of those lost to war. Music Times has curated a Memorial Day playlist that is equal parts patriotic and evocative of what it's like to love and lose a soldier.

It includes some upbeat classics, like Bette Midler's version of big band staple "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and the U.S. Air Force Band's recording of the "Washington Post" march; classic anti-war protest songs like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." and "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" by the Animals; and heartbreaking songs like The Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier," Lee Brice's "I Drive Your Truck," and blink-182's "Stockholm Syndrome Interlude," on which singer Mark Hoppus had his grandfather's real-life letters home during World War II read aloud.

"I wrote '21 Guns' because I think it will help," Johnson said. "There may be somebody out there who doesn't know how to express what they are feeling, and maybe this will help."

Whatever your plans are for the weekend, take a moment to thank a veteran or a military family for their service and sacrifice, and honor the memory of those men and women no longer with us.

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Playlist, Spotify