cover with the 1911 lyrics was performed by Greg Jong for the soundtrack of the 2020 video game Wasteland 3, and is played during the final hostile encounters in the Denver section. In 2021, Jennifer Lopez performed the song at the inauguration of Joe Biden, as the second half of a medley with "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. Idioms "From sea to shining sea", originally used in the charters of some of the English Colonies in North America, is an American idiom meaning "from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean" (or vice versa). Other songs that have used this phrase include the American patriotic song "God Bless the U.S.A." and Schoolhouse Rock's "Elbow Room". The phrase and the song are also the namesake of the Shining Sea Bikeway, a bike path in Bates's hometown of Falmouth, Massachusetts. The phrase is similar to the Latin phrase "" ("From sea to sea"), which is the official motto of Canada. "Purple mountain majesties" refers to the shade of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which inspired Bates to write the poem. The idiom inspired the Colorado Rockies to have purple as one of its team colors. In 2003, Tori Amos appropriated the phrase "for amber waves of grain" to create a personification for her song "Amber Waves". Amos imagines Amber Waves as an exotic dancer, like the character of the same name portrayed by Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights. Books Lynn Sherr's 2001 book America the Beautiful discusses the origins of the song and the backgrounds of its authors in depth. The book points out that the poem has the same meter as that of "Auld Lang Syne"; the songs can be sung interchangeably. Additionally, Sherr discusses the evolution of the lyrics, for instance, changes to the original third verse written by Bates. Melinda M. Ponder, in her 2017 biography Katharine Lee Bates: From Sea to Shining Sea, draws heavily on Bates's diaries and letters to trace the history of the poem and its place in American culture. See also "God Bless America" Notes References External links MP3 and RealAudio recordings available at the United States Library of Congress Words, sheet music & MIDI file at the Cyber Hymnal America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs named for Katharine Lee Bates' words. Archival collection of America the Beautiful lantern slides from the 1930s. Another free sheet music 1895 songs