It's been a little minute...
Oh, look, I'm back again! Today I bring you an obvious choice for the birthday of the United States of America: Video posted by The Ed Sullivan Show "God Bless America" by Irving Berlin, sung by the man himself with the backing of the Girl and Boy Scouts of America ( to whom, as it happens, all profits from the song have gone since 1940, via the God Bless America Fund ). Now, I can just hear you gathering your breath to point out all the song's flaws--jingoistic, simplistic, schmaltzy, sappy, sickly sweet, etc., etc. ... Whatever. As it happens, Irving Berlin himself did not think it was a very good song, at least not at first. He wrote it during WWI for the army-produced show "Yip, Yip, Yaphank," but rather than use it he decided it was, as he put it, “just a little sticky,” and put it away. He only fished it out of his trunk when Kate Smith approached him for a song to sing on Armistice Day 1938, rewriting it a bit before handing it over. And here