God Bless America

DESCRIPTION: "God bless America, land that I love, Stand beside her and guide her." You know the rest
AUTHOR: Irving Berlin
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (revised 1938), but not published until 1939 (Fuld)
KEYWORDS: patriotic nonballad campsong
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, p. 248, "God Bless America"
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 332, "God Bless America" (notes only)
BoyScoutSongbook1997, p. 45, "God Bless America" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, GODBLESS
Roud #V44297
NOTES [572 words]: Gardner, p. 442, estimates that this was the eleventh most popular song in America in April 1939 (#1 for the year being the "Beer Barrel Polka"), with another hot spell in August 1940 (it was #8 for the month, according to p. 449).
The main part of this was written by Irving Berlin in World War I when he was in the military; supposedly writing a musical got him out of the drudgery of being a GI. But the musical was so patriotism-heavy that they dropped the song as too serious. In 1938, Kate Smith wanted a patriotic song, so Berlin put a new opening on it, and Smith recorded it, and you know the rest. Ironic that we hardly ever hear the material added in 1938.
According to Shaw, pp. 124-127 (which features a photocopy of Berlin's original melody page), the changes in the song were small but significant -- the original like "Make her victorious on land and foam" became "From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam," with, naturally, a change in melody to accommodate the extra syllables; a removal of a political reference, a change of musical stress in the last line, and some other small changes. Shaw thinks that the changes, although minor, made it a much stronger song.
It's hardly surprising that the Girl Scouts loved this; Berlin assigned the royalties to them. Spaeth, p. 460, says that, in 1948, it had already earned them around $200,000 dollars; in all, they must have earned the equivalent of tens of millions of twenty-first century dollars.
Fuld notes that there were a bunch of earlier songs titled "God Bless America," none of which amounted to anything. Since 1939, of course, any song with this title just about has to be a parody.
It's easy to be sarcastic about a piece of froth like this, particularly if one is not inclined to mindless patriotism (or mindless religion). Woody Guthrie's irritation with it inspired "This Land Is Your Land" (Shaw, pp. 2-3), and I don't blame him one itty bit. With luck, I'll never have to hear it again. But it's worth remembering that Israel Baline was a Jewish child whose family had fled a pogrom in Russia. As Jews, they may have been second class citizens in America, but at least the United States took them in instead of burning their home! (Shaw, pp. 9-15). For Baline, later Berlin, America truly was a better place than where he had come from.
According to Shaw, p. 21, "'God Bless America' would quote a line from an 1823 parlor ballad, a cadence from a European national anthem, and a snatch of melody from a 1906 avatar of vaudeville rudeness." The parlor ballad, based on p. 51, is "Home! Sweet Home!"; p. 127 says the 1906 song is a gag song "When Mose with His Nose Leads the Band"; pp. 129-130 says the anthem is a Russian piece known in English as "God Bless the Czar"; p. 84 implies in addition a dependence on George M. Cohen's ""You're a Grand Old Flag." I'm inclined to think that some of these are just instances of grabbing commonplace phrases, but I certainly wouldn't claim that Berlin never borrowed anything. After all, this wasn't the first time Berlin used such a trick; consider the line "If you want to hear that Swanee River done in ragtime" in "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
Smith, incidentally, decided to sing the song in a march tempo, which was not Berlin's intended style. She also cut the first part of the song (Shaw, pp. 135-136). Given how well her version succeeded, he could hardly argue after that! - RBW
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