[78-L] The debut broadcast of God Bless America

[Cary Ginell]

Berlin always had a desire to write a great "peace song," but it was difficult for him, as he told a journalist, "because you have trouble dramatizing peace. It's easy to dramatize war." For the first time in his career, he wanted to write a song to change or mold public opinion, rather than just articulate it. He worked on a song called "Thanks, America," but rejected it, and also a song called "Let's Talk About Liberty," but never got far with that one either. It was only then that he pulled "God Bless America" out of his trunk. When he originally wrote the song for his World War I show "Yip, Yip, Yaphank," there were two objections to it. One was the aforementioned flood of patriotic songs coming out at the time; the other was the fact that the song would be deemed "too solemn" and "sticky" for the acerbic WWI doughboys. In addition to the changes made that Mike quoted (which I wasn't aware of) other changes Berlin made to the song were:

Changing "Stand beside her and guide her to the right with a light from above" to the more religious-tinged but still ambiguous "Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above." 
The line "make her victorious on land foam" made the song a war song in Berlin's opinion and he wanted it to be about peace, so he changed it to "From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam," a longer line that changed the meter and also, in turn, the melody.

Berlin's biography shows that Kate Smith sang the song on Armistice Day, November 11, but Biel states that the broadcast was the day before, November 10. What documentation is there of this?

When the song was performed on Memorial Day, 1939 at Ebbets Field during a Brooklyn Dodgers game, the audience rose and removed their hats, as they would for the national anthem. Kate Smith famously sang it at the New York World's Fair, resulting in the sheet music selling over 400,000 copies, with royalties exceeding $40,000. Both Republicans and Democrats besieged Berlin to gain permission to use the song at their respective political conventions in 1940. Though Berlin was a Republican, he couldn't go against FDR, a sitting Democrat, and granted permission to both parties. 

In 1940, Berlin recognized the fact that he would seem mercenary to accept royalties for a song that was supposed to be patriotic, so he established the God Bless America Fund, designating all royalties earned on the song to go to charity. The three trustees for the fund were Theodore Roosevelt,, Jr. (a Protestant), boxer Gene Tunney (a Catholic), and Herbert Swope (who was Jewish). Berlin wanted the money to go to the Red Cross but Swope convinced him to donate the proceeds to the Boy and Girl Scouts.  The Left always resented "God Bless America," with its implied conflict between church and state (why should God bless America?). Two weeks after the announcement of the Fund, the pastor of the West End Collegiate Reformed Church in New York, denounced "God Bless America" in a sermon as "doggerel" and "mawkish." Why should this mere Tin Pan Alley songsmith be permitted to write a nation's unofficial national anthem? Swope responded swiftly, defending Berlin's status as an immigrant from oppressed Russia while Berlin said that he had no intention of usurping "The Star Spangled Banner" as the official,, but unsingable anthem. 

Cary Ginell


> From: uncledavelewis at hotmail.com
> To: 78-l at 78online.com
> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:00:58 +0000
> Subject: Re: [78-L] The debut broadcast of God Bless America
> 
> 
> Dr. B. wrote:
> 
> Note two VERY important changes to the lyrics.  Are they in the sheet 
> music?  Are they in other recordings including some of Kate's 
> broadcasts?  In the introduction verse -- which she didn't sing on the 
> record and most broadcasts -- there is the line "Let us all be grateful 
> that we're far from there", which is referring to Europe 1938, of 
> course.  The line is usually heard as "Let us all be grateful for a land 
> so fair".  This is very significant.  Is there any documentation as to 
> objections to this line?
> >>>>
> 
> "God Bless America" was originally composed around 1916-early 1917, but one of Berlin's colleagues
> suggested that the market was flooded with patriotic songs of various kinds, and in this time period, 
> the colleague would have been right. Berlin packed the tune away in a large steamer trunk he used 
> to store projects for future development or reuse; the song that became "Blue Skies" spent some 
> years in that filing system as well. He didn't retrieve "God Bless America" for 20 years.
> 
> The line "Let us all be grateful that we're far from there" is probably a leftover from the earlier form
> of the song, and meant as a tip of the hat to Wilson's anti-intervention policies, which would have been
> meaningless after April 1917.   
> 
> Uncle Dave Lewis
> uncledavelewis at hotmail.com 		 	   		  
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