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You don't have to be American to be an American. Technically, we're a nation of rejects, loners, pariahs, adventurers, restless vagabonds of all varieties. We're mostly a bunch of cultural mutts. Our bloodlines would make the royal families scratch their heads. That's not my cousin! Give us your poor, wretched, huddled masses and we'll make restaurant quality lemonade out of them.

Anyhow, certain performers just exude a certain Americanism. The folks listed below belong here no matter what their citizenship status might be. Some of my best friends are legal aliens. I knew they were weird, but even the government can tell?

10) Elvis Costello: He named one of his albums King Of America, so he clearly does not understand how our political system works. But he does play an awful lot of American music from country to R&B to New Orleans-styled whatever you want to call it. Not a lot of bagpipe music coming from this guy.

9) Bush: You have to admire how quickly these guys were able to sound like Nirvana and cash in on the "grunge" phenomenon. Considering the time difference between Seattle and the U.K. that was pretty good on their part.

8) Blur: Once they realized American teens weren't going to swoon wholeheartedly for Brit-Pop and that Oasis already cornered the market, Blur went back to the drawing board and decided they'd be better off trying their hand at a little Pavement emulation. That didn't really work for them either. But it did make them sound like a lot of other indie-rock bands from the U.S.A.

7) Nick Cave: This Australian singer moved to England to get noticed and then immersed himself in Southern Gothic starring Flannery O'Connor and Elvis Presley. Only the "Goths" in this country seemed to get it. The southern rock contingent were more suspect.

6) David Bowie: You think he called an album Young Americans because he wanted to? Bowie realized what a lot of British rockers discovered. The tax system in the U.S. was more favorable to wealthy rock stars and the U.S. had (and still has) a lot more people than tiny little Britain and if you really want to make a living singing songs for people you want to appeal to more of them. Identity politics is a tricky business and I don't have time now to address this issue but we'll get it to it one of these days and trust me you will be stunned and amazed at how messed up things really are. As another guy once said, the world is a vampire.

5) Neil Young: He lives in Northern California where the girls are warm or at least warmer than his homeland of Canada. And he sings about the U.S. as topical subject matter a lot more than many performers who were born here. Is this because he can't run for President? Him and Arnold Schwarzenegger have something to talk about right there. And they're both in California. They should hang and do stuff together.

4) Rod Stewart: His album Atlantic Crossing announced his residential status from the U.K. to L.A., just in case the taxman in England didn't quite get the memo. Stewart wasn't into giving the British government so much of his money. Let God save the Queen, indeed.

3) Eric Burdon: Another Brit who ended up in California and New Orleans. But Burdon didn't just do it for the tax status (did he even notice?). He did it because this was the land that brought him the kind of music he wanted to play. Burdon's a blues singer, after all. He doesn't want to sing madrigals. Leave that to that Donovan fella.

2) John Lennon: He moved to New York City in the 1970s because he loved the energy and he even had to fight his way to citizenship. Unlike those of us who were born here and have only had to fight for our right to party. And who doesn't remember Lennon in his New York City T-shirt? The man was an icon. And a goodwill ambassador when he wasn't holed up in his apartment baking bread or whatever he did for five years while the world waited.

1) The Rolling Stones: By the 1970s, the Rolling Stones were name dropping New York City in their songs a heckuva lot more than London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Brixton, Brighton or Stratford on Avon. And when they shot their videos, they hung out in the East Village or trampled through Central Park. You're going to tell me these guys aren't Americans?