Here are the facts...
The link at the bottom will take
you to a video showing the very first public singing of "GOD BLESS
AMERICA". But before you watch it, you should also know the story
behind the first public showing of the song.
The time was 1940. America was
still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and
Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and
worry for most Americans.
This was the era just before TV,
when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in
the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of
that era was bigger than Kate Smith.
Kate was also large; plus size,
as we now say, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her,
"It ain't over till the fat lady sings". Kate Smith might not have
made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was
the biggest star of her time.
Kate was also patriotic. It
hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would
bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted
to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American
song-writer, Irving Berlin (who also wrote "White Christmas") and
asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their
country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just
the song for her.
He went to his files and found a
song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before - way back in
1917. He gave it to and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She
and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public,
but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any
profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts
have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.
This video starts out with Kate
Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She
introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the
first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are
shown from the 1940 movie, "You're In The Army Now." At the
4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an
office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan.
To this day, God Bless America
stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when
Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow
Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would
be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry..... and
for many generations of Americans to follow. Now that you know the story
of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it and treasure it even more.
Many people don't know there's a
lead in to the song since it usually starts with "God Bless
America....." So here's the entire song as originally sung.
Click here Click
here: YouTube#%21
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