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YouTube links:
Styrous® ~ Tuesday, March 24, 2026
On Tuesday, March 24, 1939, God Bless America was recorded by Kate Smith. It is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin during World War I in 1918 and revised by him in the run-up to World War II in 1938. The later version was recorded by Smith and became her signature song.
Music critic Jody Rosen
says that a 1906 Jewish dialect novelty song, When Mose with His Nose
Leads the Band, contains a six-note fragment that is "instantly
recognizable as the opening strains of 'God Bless America'". He
interprets this as an example of Berlin's "habit of interpolating bits of half-remembered songs into his own numbers." I think that's kind of stretching it but judge for yourself (link below).
In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish felt it was
time to revive it as a "peace song", and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show. Berlin had made some minor changes; by this time, "to the right" might
have been considered a call to the political right, so he substituted
"through the night" instead. Woody Guthrie criticized the song, and in 1940 he wrote This Land Is Your Land, originally titled God Blessed America For Me, as a response. Anti-Semitic groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also protested against the song due to its authorship by a Jewish immigrant.
Berlin gave the royalties of the song to The God Bless America Fund for redistribution to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in New York City.
In 1940, God Bless America was the official campaign song for both President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie. At that time, the song represented cultural and religious tolerance (my how times change).
The song was used early in the Civil Rights Movement as well as at labor rallies. During the 1960s counterculture, the song was increasingly used by Christian conservatives in the US to signal their opposition to secular liberalism and to silence dissenters who were speaking in favor of communism or in opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
During a live television broadcast on the evening of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, following addresses by then House and Senate leaders, Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican) and Tom Daschle (Democrat), members of the United States Congress broke out into an apparently spontaneous verse of God Bless America on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
It has become common for it to be sung at major sport events: the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, American football and the Indianapolis 500.
It has been recorded by Bing Crosby, Connie Francis, Jackie Evancho, LeAnn Rimes, the Violent Femmes (this is a very strange cover) and two versions by Celine Dion. The Firesign Theatre did parodies on two of their albums, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him in 1968 and How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All in 1969.
And the 2011 film God Bless America, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, is a dark comedy that satirizes present-day American values.
God Bless America lyrics
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.
God bless America, land that I love.
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above.
From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America, my home sweet home,
God bless America, my home sweet home.
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.
God bless America, land that I love.
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above.
From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America, my home sweet home,
God bless America, my home sweet home.
Viewfinder links:
YouTube links:
Collins and Harlan ~ When Mose with His Nose Leads the Band
Firesign Theater .~
Waiting for the Electrician (Complete Album) (42 mins.)
God Bless America ~
Styrous® ~ Tuesday, March 24, 2026
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