Posted on 09/19/2001 2:48:14 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Song becomes popular again
SAM EIFLING
seifling@herald.com
From the mountains to the prairies, to the steps of Congress and baseball stadiums, God Bless America has in the last week become the American flag of songs.
It's simple. It's patriotic. And it's popping up everywhere.
With easy lyrics and idyllic imagery, the melody has seemed more common than the Star-Spangled Banner in the days following the attacks in New York and Washington.
On the evening of the attacks, as Congress members returned to work, someone began singing the song, and the legislators joined in like a grade school chorus in suits. When Major League Baseball resumed play Monday, clubs invited fans to sing it instead of Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh-inning stretch. The song played before Monday's game in Pittsburgh, and before anyone said ``play ball,'' several of the visiting New York Mets were crying.
Maybe the song connects because the very words ``God bless America'' are at once prayer, oath, slogan and war cry. Maybe it's because the tune is so much easier to sing than the Star-Spangled Banner.
``God Bless America is a lot more singable,'' said Timothy Sharpe, music director of the Miami Children's Chorus. ``There are fewer lyrics, the range is shorter, as you get closer to the ending, it has much more energy in it. That section in the song where you go, `from the mountains/ to the prairies/ to the oceans white with foam' it's a buildup. . . . There's an emotional buildup.''
After being inducted into the army in 1918, Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America for an all-soldier comedy revue but held the somber-sounding song out of the show. In 1938, Berlin revived and revised the song when war again threatened. On Armistice Day, Kate Smith sang it on CBS radio from the New York World's Fair, and the song was an instant smash.
Berlin, a Russian immigrant at the age of 5 who grew up in New York, declined to profit from the song and donated his royalties to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, who today include it in their songbooks.
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
Oops! Better look for the pro-homosexual crowd to start speaking out against this song!
... or how's 'bout "Onward Christian Soldiers" ?
The liberals I know wouldn't want God Bless America as the national anthem b/c of the religious connotation. They also don't care for the Star Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful for these reasons, either.
BTW, does anyone know if there are any more patriotic Greenwood songs?
I totally agree. That one gets me everytime I hear it.
This week I'm especially partial to the "bombs bursting in air" line.
ROCK OF AGES
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.
Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Besides...I particularly like the way the first verse ends with a very important question. Don't mess with the National Anthem!
I posted this on another thread. That song always chokes me up or makes me cry. I got out a song book and checked the author's name -- Julia Ward Howe -- then checked out the circumstances of her writing it in 1861. She was a fervent abolitionist and wrote the lyrics, using a US campmeeting melody, after she watched Union soldiers marching off to fight in the War between the States. The fifth stanza lacks attribution but she wrote the first four stanzas. I wish someone would have told this to me and other students when I was growing up: that it was written during our Civil War as a battle cry for that terrible conflict. It gives it much more meaning, in my eyes, without diminishing its present application. It is a cry for divine justice, wrought through human hands, against oppression and freedom. And yet it conveys to me the terrible price paid in human blood to ensure that future generations would be able to walk free. How can we thank those who paid for our freedom with their blood? That's why it chokes me up so much. There are no adequate thanks.
...Stand beside her, and guide her
through the night with a light from a bulb...
It's wrong to snicker at a patriotic song, but I have a hard time avoiding it with "God Bless America."
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