God Bless America
[3] The lyrics at that time included the line "Make her victorious on land and foam, God bless America..."[2] as well as "Stand beside her and guide her to the right with the light from above".
[4] Music critic Jody Rosen says that a 1906 Jewish dialect novelty song, "When Mose with His Nose Leads the Band," contains a six-note fragment that is "instantly recognizable as the opening strains of 'God Bless America'".
[6] In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and had arrived in the U.S. from Russia at the age of five, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song", and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show.
[10] "God Bless America" also spawned another of Irving Berlin's tunes, "Heaven Watch The Philippines," during the end of World War II.
In 1940, "God Bless America" was the official campaign song for both President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie.
[12] During a live television broadcast on the evening of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, following addresses by then House and Senate leaders, Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican) and Tom Daschle (Democrat), members of the United States Congress broke out into an apparently spontaneous verse of "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.[13] On July 21, 2011, Smith's version of the song was played as NASA's final wakeup call for Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-135), capping the 30-year Space Shuttle program.
"God Bless America" has been performed at home games of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers and those of the Ottawa Senators in which the visiting team is from the United States.
Before games whenever "God Bless America" is performed until 2019, Lou Nolan, the PA announcer for the Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center, would say: "Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we ask that you please rise and remove your hats and salute to our flags and welcome the No.
"[15] At some Senators home games since 2000–01,[16] if the visiting team is from the U.S., their main anthem singer, Ontario Provincial Police Constable Lyndon Slewidge, has sung "God Bless America" and "O Canada.
[17] During Tom Golisano's time as owner of the Buffalo Sabres, the team occasionally substituted "God Bless America" for "The Star-Spangled Banner" during certain special events.
When this occurred, Ronan Tynan was brought in to sing the song while usual anthem singer Doug Allen sang "O Canada."
At Chicago's Wrigley Field during the Vietnam War, the song was often played by the organist as part of his postgame playlist while fans filed out of the stadium.
Following the attacks, John Dever, then the Assistant Media Relations Director of the San Diego Padres, suggested the song replace "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", the more traditional 7th inning anthem.
[25] On August 26, 2008, at a Boston Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium, a fan who had attempted to leave for the restroom during the playing of the song was restrained and subsequently sent out of the building by NYPD officers.
[26] On September 15, 2009, three high school teens filed a lawsuit against New Jersey's minor league Newark Bears for being ejected from Eagles Riverfront Stadium over their refusal to stand during the playing of "God Bless America" on June 29, 2009.
[27] At the January 1, 1976, Rose Bowl, to honor the start of the United States Bicentennial, Kate Smith and the UCLA Band performed "God Bless America" for a national television audience.
The song for many years was performed by Florence Henderson, a native Hoosier, and a friend of the Hulman-George family, the track's owners at the time.
Shortly afterwards on October 16, 2001 Sony Music released a benefit album called God Bless America, which featured Dion singing the song.
Dion's version was released as a promotional single in September 2001[31] and received enough radio airplay to reach number 14 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.
