Please disable your Ad Blocker to better interact with this website.

MENU

Ret. Naval Petty Officer, 1st Class, Generald Wilson Sings Stirring Rendition of God Bless America

Written by:

Published on: October 19, 2015

God Bless America is a long time favorite patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised in 1938. However, when performed by a man like Ret. Naval Petty Officer, 1st Class, Generald Wilson, it becomes a stirring prayer for God’s blessing on our nation.

Enjoy the incredible performance of Wilson on Fox News.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Wikipedia gives us some of the history of the song:

Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918 while serving the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside. The lyrics at that time included the line “Make her victorious on land and foam, God bless America…” as well as “Stand beside her and guide her to the right with the light from above.”

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””. He interprets this as an example of Berlin’s “habit of interpolating bits of half-remembered songs into his own numbers.” Berlin, born Israel Baline, had himself written several Jewish-themed novelty tunes.

In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Berlin, who was Jewish and a Russian immigrant, 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. Berlin had made some minor changes; by this time, “to the right” might have been considered a call to the political right, so he substituted “through the night” instead. He also provided an introduction that is now rarely heard but which Smith 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.” (In her first broadcast of the song, Kate Smith sang “that we’re far from there” rather than “for a land so fair”.) This was changed when Berlin published the sheet music in March 1939.

Our only hope now when praying this song is that God would bless America with true repentance.

Become an insider!

Sign up to get breaking alerts from Sons of Liberty Media.

Don't forget to like SonsOfLibertyMedia.com on Facebook and Twitter.
The opinions expressed in each article are the opinions of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of SonsOfLibertyMedia.com.

Trending on The Sons of Liberty Media