Patriotic song eases time of pain
Kate Smith appealed to an old friend when she sought a new
patriotic song for her popular radio program for the evening of
Nov. 10, 1938, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the end of World
War I.
She requested that he write something that would exemplify
America’s meaning and that would appeal to the nation at large.
Irving Berlin went right to work. He loved his adopted country
and saw the task as a way to express that love. He composed several
songs over a few days but none seemed to meet the need.
Patriotic song eases time of pain
Kate Smith appealed to an old friend when she sought a new patriotic song for her popular radio program for the evening of Nov. 10, 1938, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the end of World War I.
She requested that he write something that would exemplify America’s meaning and that would appeal to the nation at large.
Irving Berlin went right to work. He loved his adopted country and saw the task as a way to express that love. He composed several songs over a few days but none seemed to meet the need.
Then he remembered one he had written for a musical review at a New York training camp when he was an infantryman 20 years earlier. He had put it away because it did not match the mood of the other songs.
Berlin retrieved it from an old trunk. One or two of the lines didn’t seem right so he rewrote them. Then he took the song to Miss Smith.
She loved it immediately. On the night of Nov. 10, she delivered the prologue in a subdued voice: “While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free. Let us all be grateful for a land so fair as we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.”
Then her magnificent voice poured forth in sheer unbridled emotion, “God bless America, land that I love…”
Reaction was overwhelming. The studio’s switchboard was jammed with calls, and listeners throughout the nation marveled at the song’s simplicity and emotion. Thousands clamored for sheet music, and Miss Smith soon recorded it.
Berlin had written hundreds of songs and was to write many more but he considered “God Bless America” his greatest achievement. He designated that all royalties were to go to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.
Kate Smith was overwhelmed by its power and beauty and unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to make it the national anthem. She was deluged with requests to sing it wherever she appeared and it almost supplanted her program theme, “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.”
It was ironic that Berlin, who had come here from Russia as a boy, composed one of the nation’s most patriotic songs. It is equally so that as a Jew he wrote others that have become standards of two Christian holidays, “Easter Parade” and “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”
His favorite song has been played at patriotic gatherings, at concerts and ball games but perhaps its deep-seated meaning was best exemplified on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.
Many senators and representatives had gathered on the Capitol steps to reassure a nation still stunned by the terrorist attacks. Reporters were firing questions when someone began singing quietly, “God bless America…”
Immediately everyone took it up and officials, reporters and observers, many with tears flowing freely, sang fervently as one united people,”…Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above…”
