God Bless America

Have you ever had one of those moments where something hits you from out of the blue and you unexpectedly end up with a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes? Well, that just happened to me. There I was, minding my own business on a cold, rainy morning in Belgrade. I was in my kitchen, making chili, and listening to a CD of American patriotic songs. All of a sudden, Daniel Rodriguez's rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" came on, and I caught myself listening to the words, and before you know it, there I was, weeping over the hot pot of chili. When the song ended, I played it again, and asked myself why it had affected me like it did. And then, I decided to do a little bit of research on the song.

In terms of its effect on me, what can I say? I haven't been in the United States for more than 14 months. America is my home, and as much as we have absolutely loved and treasured our time in Serbia, there is no getting around the fact that, in my view, the United States is an amazing, special, unique and one-of-a-kind place. To be sure, there are many things in the United States that still by no means are perfect (take health care, for instance), but by and large, it is a country that offers unparalleled freedom, opportunity, hope, and justice to its citizens.

But don't take it from me; take it from the songwriter himself. Irving Berlin was born in 1888, and was one of eight children born to his Jewish parents (his father was a cantor in a Jewish synogogue). When he was just five years old, he watched as his house burned to the ground. It had been set on fire by the Cossacks during one of the many anti-semitic pogroms that were taking place in Russia during that time. Shortly thereafter, his parents escaped from Russia with their children, and, and in 1893, his family arrived in New York City. While life was not easy for the Baline family (Berlin's birthname was Israel Baline), through the meager salaries earned by his Mother (his father died two years after arriving in America), Irving and his sisters, they made ends meet.

Of course, Berlin went on to become one of the most accomplished and prolific American songwriters of all time. He wrote "God Bless America" in 1918, when he was thirty years old, although it was not performed publicly until 1938. The phrase "God Bless America" was taken from Berlin's mother. Apparently, while he was growing up on the Lower East Side, she would say "God bless America" often, to indicate that, without America, her family would have had no place to go. The Economist magazine wrote that by writing "God Bless America", Berlin was "producing a deep-felt paean to the country that had given him what he would have said was everything. It is a melody that still makes his fellow countrymen want to stand up and place their hands over their hearts."

And, something else I didn't know: Berlin assigned all royalties for the song to the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts, and those royalties have earned millions of dollars for those organizations over the years.

The song is often sung in times of national tragedies. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, U.S. Senators and Congressmen stood on the Capitol steps and sang it after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Two nights later, when Broadway turned its lights back on, the casts of numerous shows led theatergoers in renditions of the same song. At an official requiem at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. after 9/11, it was played by the U.S. Army Orchestra. The following Monday, to mark the reopening of the New York Stock Exchange, New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani joined traders in singing it. That evening, as major league baseball games resumed around the country it replaced "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as the theme song of the seventh-inning stretch. Over the following weeks, everyone — Celine Dion, Marc Anthony, New York City Police Department officer Daniel Rodriguez, the whole country — sang "God Bless America."

The lyrics are simple, but beautiful, and I think given more meaning when understood in the context of who wrote them, and what they must have meant to him:

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
Through 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.