Like Bridge Over Troubled Water and StandByMe, it's in a genre you might call "secular sacred" - as at home in choral versions on Songs of Praise as it is in the record collections of atheists.
Today, while the "deeper and longer" recession proponents standby in their crash helmets, the "worst is over" adherents, including me, can't conjure up more than a shallow recovery.
These ideals, when voiced by generations of citizens, are what made it possible for me to stand here today. (Applause.) These ideals are what made it possible for the people in this room to live freely and openly when for most of history that would have been inconceivable.