"God Bless America"

by Guess Who?

Sometimes a Song just has to be. I’m writing this week’s entry (almost) by dawn’s early light. You will forgive me if I ramble a bit. There’s a heat wave happening in the USA, and we have no A/C at our house. The Glorious 4th has dawned for the 250th time. And for that may all of us be truly grateful.

Among many things I am grateful for today is the life and work of the wonderful and talented and humble Irving Berlin, a composer I’ve written about least a dozen times over our four years of doing Word & Song. Today I would like to share with you a song which Mr. Berlin wrote in 1918, when he was serving during the first world war. (You can read what I’ve written before about his contributions to the war effort and morale in the military and on the homefront here: “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning!”)

Hard as it may be for us to imagine given the universal and enduring value of this song, Berlin didn’t find it suitable for use during WW1, and so after writing it, he tucked the song away in his famous suitcase full of music — and only dusted it off and published it 1938, when the darkness of world war was again casting a shadow over the world. Did I mention that Irving Berlin was perhaps the MOST grateful American of us all? With a slight revision of the 20-year-old lyrics, Berlin premiered his song in a version customized by the immensely popular Kate Smith, who sang “God Bless America” on her radio show for Armistice Day, November 11, an international commemoration of the end of the first world war. The song became a blazing hit for Berlin, who donated every cent of the royalties he earned from it for the rest of his life to the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts in New York City. And that had to have been a fair chunk of change. What an American he was!

I think it fair to say that most of the English speaking world of our own day still know this song. I hope that most Americans, at least, can still sing it. For today, I decided to give you Kate Smith’s recording of “God Bless America” from Berlin’s film, “This is the Army.” That it became her signature song merits that patented Esolen !!DIFFERENT UNIVERSE ALERT!! See what you think.

I am also including today Irving Berlin’s customized version of “The Whiffenpoof Song, which I have written about here. Mr. Berlin did not hire professional singers to perform in “This is the Army.” Instead he chose a group of Air Corpsmen for that honor. Ah for the days when ordinary people could and did sing! This song evokes a sense not JUST of nostalgia, but of yearning for a return to a more rational world that what we live in today — and yes, it too should make us grateful, again and again, for those who sacrificed so much for their homes and homelands. God bless America indeed.

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Word & Song is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber.