“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free.
Let us all be faithful to this land so fair
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. . . .”
This was the intro to the song that I learned some 30 years ago.
I since learned that this song was first sung a couple of years before our entry into World War II–although it had been written some 20 years earlier, and Irving Berlin had just shelved it for all that time.
So, is this intro an original part of the song, or was this added in response the foreboding political climate in Europe?
Also, Bruce Springsteen made the claim on his '84 or '85 boxed set of CD’s that Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” was written as a “response” to “God Bless America.”
Far be it from me to doubt the word of a noted historian like Mr. Springsteen, but is there any truth to that?
I have also read (in an article about Woody Guthrie) that “This Land is Your Land” was written as a response to “God Bless America.” Unfortunately, I don’t remember the source.
Quand les talons claquent, l’esprit se vide.
Maréchal Lyautey
When Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America, he had the famous singer Kate Smith look at it and tell him what she thought. She read/sang it and said, " You’ve just wrote the second national anthem."
Whenever I hear the song, I think Kate Smith did it best.
BTW, if anyone ever comes across a CD/cassette of Irving Berlin’s top songs, lemme know. I had one for years and lost it when I sold my car.
Many years ago, the late John Putnam, then the art director at Mad, produced a magnificent expression of his irreverence when he was confronted with a tradesmen’s “rule” he considered pretentious.
He had sent some copy to the typesetters, in which the word “America” was divided at the end of one line, according to Mad writer Frank Jacobs. The typesetting foreman sent the copy back to Putnam, explaining that his union had a rule against splitting that word in print. Putnam obliged, rewriting the copy to conform to the rule; he sent the corrected copy back to the typesetters, along with this enclosure: DON’T BREAK AMERICA
(To the tune of “God Bless America”)
Don’t break America,
Land we extol;
Don’t deface it, upper-case it,
Keep it clean, keep it pure, keep it whole;
In Bodoni, in Futura,
In Old English, in Cabell:
Don’t Break America;
Or we’ll–raise–hell!
“If you drive an automobile, please drive carefully–because I walk in my sleep.”–Victor Borge
I seem to recall that “God Bless America” was originally written for “Yip Yip Yaphank” in 1917, but cut from the show. Kate Smith found it in the late 1930s and got the exclusive rights to sing it on the radio.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
The copyright laws may have been different then, but today there is no such thing as “exclusive right” to sing any song. Right to publish (and record) it first, yes. Right to collect royalties from all others who sing or play it for profit, yes. But exclusive right to sing – hard to imagine.
As I said, my folks told me that. But I also had a 78 of Gene Autry singing it, too.
I don’t think the copyright laws have changed. Berlin once approached Groucho Marx and offered him a “personal ASCAP.”
Berlin said he’d pay Groucho $100 each time he didn’t sing “Stay Down Here Where You Belong” at parties.
The man who gave us “God Bless America” didn’t want people to know he had once written an anti-war song (at the beginning of WWI).
The singing of the song is a matter of licensing, not copyright. In the 1930s ASCAP did all the licensing, and Berlin was an important member (maybe even a founder) of ASCAP, so they probably did what he asked. Note that Smith only had the right to sing it on the radio, so recordings by others were allowed.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
