Its commercials (like the video above) are filled with heart-tugging images: beaches and bayous, the arches of Utah, a fin-tailed convertible cruising a neon-lit street, a girl running through a field of goldenrod, a New Orleans brass band and a biker heading toward the Golden Gate.

FORBES: To Attract Tourists, America Gets A Theme Song

And few bands in recent years have experienced as much source material when it comes to personal turmoil: The tragic death of a former band member and a current member's hospitalization after kidney failure helped inspire the band's 2007 album Asleep at Heaven's Gate, one of the decade's most profoundly sad and moving rock records.

NPR: Rogue Wave: To Sunnier Days Ahead

Welcomed by about 1, 000 well-wishers, a military band and tri-service guard of honour, the Queen was given a porcelain model of the Brandenburg Gate and the duke a wristwatch by President Kohler and his wife, Eva Luise.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Queen honours war dead in Germany