independence day Archives -

It’s the season of patriotic songs. You know the melodies, and maybe the lyrics, and now we present you with a little of the history of some of the most well-known and well-loved.

God Bless America

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the 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, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above

From the mountains to the prairies/To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home

To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home/

God bless America, my home sweet home

Irving Berlin might be best known for songs such as “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” and scores for 19 Broadway shows and
18 movies, but he also wrote “God Bless America.” In 1918, Berlin, a Russian immigrant, was serving in the U.S. Army in Yaphank, New York. “God Bless America” was intended for the finale of his comedic all-soldier music revue, Yip Yap Yaphank, but Berlin decided to cut it, and did nothing with the song for 20 years. Then, in response to the growing conflict in Europe, he made revisions to the unpublished song, and Kate Smith first sang it on her radio program on Armistice Day, (now called Veterans Day), broadcast in 1938. “God Bless America” became her signature song.

America the Beautiful (1st stanza)

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties/Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood/From sea to shining sea!

The author of “America the Beautiful,” Katharine Lee Bates, was a Massachusetts native who became an English literature professor at Wellesley College. It was on an 1893 trip to Colorado, on Pike’s Peak, that she began to formulate the words to “America the Beautiful.” Her poem first appeared in The Congregationalist, a weekly newspaper, on July 4,1895. Over time, Bates made a few revisions to the words and for years, the poem was sung to many popular tunes, including “Auld Lang Syne.” Today it is sung to a melody written in 1882 by Samuel Augustus Ward, a Newark, New Jersey, church organist and choir director who originally wrote the tune to accompany the words of a 16th century hymn. Although they did not know each other, Bates’ poem and Ward’s music were published together in 1910.

The Stars and Stripes Forever

When you think of military marches, you think of John Philip Sousa. Sousa first became famous as the leader of the U.S. Marine Band and then with the Sousa Band, which toured for nearly 40 years. Known as “The March King,” he composed over 100 marches including “Semper Fidelis” (1888), which became the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps, and the rousing, July 4th favorite, “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” (1896), the national march of the United States. And yes, the “The Stars and Stripes Forever” has lyrics, but they are much lesser known than the tune itself.

The Star Spangled Banner (1st stanza)

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,/Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,/O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?/And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The lyrics to the “The Star Spangled Banner” are a poem titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” written by lawyer, Francis Scott Key, during the War of 1812. Upon seeing a large American victory flag waving after a night of intense British bombardment at the Battle of Baltimore, Key was moved to write the poem. It was paired with a British tune written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society and became known as “The Star Spangled Banner.” (For those not in know, Anacreon was an ancient Greek poet known for his celebrations of love and wine.) Declared the national anthem in 1931, and often played at professional sporting events, “The Star Spangled Banner” is notoriously challenging to sing given its difficult lyrics and high pitched and held notes.

God Bless the USA

If tomorrow all the things were gone I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife

I thank my lucky stars
To be living here today
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom/And they can’t take that away
And I’m proud to be an American/Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died/Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up next to you/And defend Her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.
From the lakes of Minnesota
To the hills of Tennessee
Across the plains of Texas
From sea to shining sea

From Detroit down to Houston
And New York to L.A.
Well, there’s pride in every American heart/And it’s time we stand and say
That I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died/Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up next to you
And defend Her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.
And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died/Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up next to you
And defend Her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

Singer songwriter Lee Greenwood released “God Bless the USA” in 1984. Greenwood, and the song, which peaked at Number 7 on the country chart, were nominated for two Grammys that year: Best Country Male Vocal and Best Country Song. However, it became an even bigger hit during the Gulf War in 1991, and then again in 2001, after 9/11. Greenwood had wanted to write a patriotic song for years, and found inspiration for the song when Russia shot down Korean Airlines flight 007 in 1983, killing 63 Americans.

By Ellen Marsden

“Listen,” my mother said, “here it comes.” I heard the sound of drums and then horns in the distance, my first glimpse of a marching band. This was my first Fourth of July parade.

That morning was warm and sunny. At home, my mom told my dad to “hurry up,” we had to get there or we wouldn’t be able to see. My dad hoisted me up in his arms and then up over his head so I straddled his shoulders.

Off we went. We didn’t have a car, so it seemed like a long walk before I was on the ground and sitting on the curbstone across from the Everett Mill building in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Before long, a man came by selling balloons. My mom bought me an ice cream bar from a car and a crowd began to gather on the other side of the street ad behind us, three deep. Many of them held small flags.

As a young child, the Fourth of July was just a day for a parade with marching bands, girls twirling sticks, local Boy Scout troops trying to walk in step, policemen marching, some soldiers or sailors, and fire trucks at the end of the parade. There was music and flag waving and cookouts and summer fun.

At some point, however, I began hearing about the Declaration of Independence and that Thomas Jefferson wrote it. School textbooks were of little interest to me; they seemed so dull, even boring. The books had dates and dry facts: John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 and became the second president of the United States in 1797. No history teacher stirred my interest, either.

I was out of high school before I really felt, understood, and appreciated that these men — many who were men of wealth and means — had so much to lose and literally risked hanging as traitors guilty of treason. Still, they boldly and courageously signed their names to the document that accused King George III of multiple offenses and declared their independence.

Who knew what would happen next? A group of colonies had declared war on a powerful nation with a mighty military. The colonies had no army when they took on King George.

In August 1776, British troops, some 34,000 of them, were prepared to invade New York. About a year earlier Patrick Henry told angry colonists meeting at St. John’s Church in Richmond Virginia: “Give me liberty or give me death.” The sentiment grew among the colonists.

The Declaration of Independence was born during the summer of 1776. It did not flow unimpeded from Thomas Jefferson’s pen. He was the original wordsmith, but over 17 days, a committee and representatives at the Continental Congress made more than 80 changes to Jefferson’s draft. They voted for independence on July 2 and released the final signed declaration on July 4.

John Hancock, the first to sign it, stressed the need for unity when he said, “We must hang together,” to which Benjamin Franklin added, “Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

They pledged to each other “our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

They knew independence would not come easily. John Adams said “the object is great which we have in view, and we must expect a great expense of blood to obtain it. But we must remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate.”

The king called them traitors. They called themselves patriots. The colonists did indeed shed their blood and win their independence, setting the stage for the creation of a unique government that persists today, in spite of social upheaval, unrest and pandemic.

And, on a much smaller scale, they saved me that space on the curb in Lawrence, Massachusetts so many years later, and the right for my mother to say, “Listen, here it comes.”

by Bill Johnson

Bill Johnson is a retired news reporter and congressional aide who is now a freelance writer.

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Patriotic songs touchstone of Fourth of July