American rock and pop music can be very melodramatic, overly serious, or angry. Less so country music. There's more joy in country music, more humor ("All my ex's live in Texas."), more of the happiness that Americans are constantly in pursuit of.
The "pursuit of happiness" in the American Declaration of Independence was, famously, a substitute. Among the "Truths" held by the founders to be "self-evident" was that all men were endowed with certain "unalienable Rights" and that among those were acquiring and possessing "property." Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson got property changed to "the pursuit of happiness." The song below, "Dixieland Delight," by the American country music band Alabama is a good example of the happiness that some Americans find in living in America and, significantly for seeking the soul of America, of living a life modest in property acquisition and possession.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i019fwYM_Pw
