“God Bless America” is a favorite patriotic song. It’s author, Irving Berlin was a Russian Jew who immigrated to the U.S. As a child., his mother would tell him “God bless America” because she was grateful to be living in this land. Perhaps that line resonated in him and became the well-known song we sing today.
Irving came up with the song “God Bless America” in 1918, while serving in the Army but never used the song. Later in 1938 he pulled it out of a trunk, revised it and Kate Smith first sang it. The song tapped into the national psyche, offering a kind of collective prayer of peace for the unease over the impending second world war. Within days, it was being hailed as the new national anthem.
It was boycotted by the Klu Klux Klan, sung repeatedly at sporting events and later became a source of revenue with the Boy Scouts who receive royalties from this song.
As his daughter Mary Ellin Barrett said, “I came to understand that it wasn’t ‘God Bless America, land that we love.’ It was ‘God bless America, land that I love.’ It was an incredibly personal statement that my father was making, that anybody singing that song makes as they sing it. And I understood that that song was his ‘thank you’ to the country that had taken him in. It was the song of the immigrant boy who made good.” Let it be our prayer as well (for your nation wherever you are from) !
God Bless America Irving Berlin 1939
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 Thru the night with a 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.