On this day in history, November 11, 1938:
Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America" was sung for the first time by Kate Smith on her radio show, and it soon became her signature song. He originally wrote it while serving in the Army in 1918, but decided that it was not quite right for a show he had written, so he put it aside.
With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s, Berlin, a first-generation, European, Jewish immigrant, felt the time was right to revive it as a "peace song." It was introduced during an Armistice Day broadcast and sung by Kate Smith on her radio show, a news and gossip program called “Kate Smith Speaks,” on November 11, 1938.
Berlin, who thought the patriotic song was his most important composition, provided Smith, long known as the "First Lady of Radio,” with an introduction that is now rarely heard, but which she always used: "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."
Patriotic Song Was Immediate Hit
The arrangement for Smith's performance of the song was accompanied by a full band and moved into a grand march tempo, with trumpets backing up the harmonies between the stanzas. The dramatic buildup concludes on a high note, which she sang as a sustained, a cappella note, with the band joining in for the finale.
One music critic discovered that a Jewish dialect song of 1906 contains a six-note fragment that is "instantly recognizable as the opening strains of ‘God Bless America.’” Berlin, who was born Israel Baline, had written some Jewish-themed tunes before.
Smith’s rendition of "God Bless America" was immediately popular; and a movement arose for awhile to make it the U.S. national anthem. It was featured in the patriotic musical “This Is the Army” in 1943. Berlin gave all the royalties from the song to the God Bless America Fund, to be redistributed to the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of the United States of America.
Woody Guthrie Did Not Like It
On a cross-country trip, folk singer Woody Guthrie, who thought the prayerful song was overly sentimental and self-righteous, wrote “This Land Is Your Land,” originally entitled "God Blessed America For Me," in response to the popularity of “God Bless America,” which he got tired of hearing on the radio.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a recording of Smith singing the song was played before many home games of the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers, and this brought it renewed popularity. She appeared in person to sing it before the final game of the 1974 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Flyers won the cup that day.
Accompanied by a UCLA band, Kate Smith sang "God Bless America" for a nationwide, TV audience at the commencement of the United States Bicentennial at the 1976 Rose Bowl. And after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Celine Dion, the Canadian songstress, performed it on a televised special called “America: A Tribute to Heroes.”
“God Bless America”
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.
In 1938, Kate Smith, who recorded 3,000 songs, more than any other popular performer, predicted that “God Bless America” would be performed long after all of us are gone.
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