America the Beautiful

I have written a little before about Irving Berlin, the author of such classic songs as Happy Holidays, White Christmas, and God Bless America.  Berlin, a Jew, wrote White Christmas and Happy Holidays as more secular Christmas songs.  His limited religious convictions hindered him from writing too much about Jesus Christ.  The freedom to have his own limited religious convictions infused him with such patriotism that he also wrote, God Bless America.

In my more cynical moments, I sometimes mock the fact that Happy Holidays has become the annoyance of some religious conservatives in the so called "War on Christmas".  I certainly like the song as much as I like any Christmas music and I generally am welcome to any season's greeting.  Still, if someone is offended by "Happy Holidays", why would you wish it to someone ?  Likewise, if someone is offended by "Merry Christmas", why would you wish to offend them?  Personally, either is fine.  The greeting was even popularized by the man who wrote God Bless America. (Even if this was not an evangelical God song)  Merry Christmas, God bless America, and Happy Holidays.

Given the background behind God Bless America, sometimes I wonder if people understand the purpose of the song.  I know when I sang  God Bless America at church, I thought of an evangelical God/Jesus Christ.  Still the title of this blog is "America the Beautiful", so what about America the Beautiful?



O beautiful . . .

Returning in 1894 from an inspiring trip to Pikes Peak in Colorado, a minor New England poet named Katharine Lee Bates wrote a verse she titled ''America.'' It was printed the following year in a church publication in Boston to commemorate the Fourth of July.

Lynn Sherr, the ABC News correspondent, has written a timely and deliciously researched book about how that verse was written and edited and how it was fitted to a hymn called ''Materna,'' written about the same time by Samuel Augustus Ward, whom the poet never met. In ''America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song'' (Public Affairs, $25), Sherr reveals the rewriting by Bates that shows the value of working over a lyric.

''O beautiful for halcyon skies,'' the poem began. Halcyon is a beautiful word, based on the Greek name for the bird, probably a kingfisher, that ancient legend had nesting in the sea during the winter solstice and calming the waves. It means ''calm, peaceful'' and all those happy things, but the word is unfamiliar and does not evoke the West. Spacious, however, not only describes Big Sky country but also alliterates with skies, so she changed it.

The often-unsung third stanza contained a zinger at the acquisition of wealth: ''America! America!/God shed his grace on thee/Till selfish gain no longer stain/The banner of the free!'' Sherr writes that Bates, disillusioned with the Gilded Age's excesses, ''wanted to purify America's great wealth, to channel what she had originally called 'selfish gain' into more noble causes.'' The poet took another crack at the line that der-ogated the profit motive, and the stanza now goes: ''America! America!/May God thy gold refine/Till all success be nobleness/And every gain divine!''

The line that needed editing the most was the flat and dispiriting conclusion: ''God shed his grace on thee/Till nobler men keep once again/Thy whiter jubilee!'' That cast an aspersion on the current generation, including whoever was singing the lyric. The wish for ''nobler men'' to come in the future ended the song, about to be set to Ward's hymn, on a self-deprecating note.

In 1904, 10 years after her first draft, Katharine Lee Bates revised the imperfect last lines of the final stanza. The new image called up at the end not only reminds the singers of the ''spacious skies'' that began the song but also elevates the final theme to one of unity and tolerance. Her improvement makes all the difference, especially in times like these:

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea! [1]

There is somewhat of a debate over Bates' sexual orientation.  Bates never married, but did live intimately with Katharine Coman for twenty-five years.  In the late 19th century, this is what was known as a "Boston Marriage."[2]  Likely some "Boston Marriages" were sexual, but perhaps not all were.  In her poems Bates confessed a deep love for Coman and her death shattered Bates' heart.  However, it can be difficult to assume our modern sensibilities on their relationship.[3][4][5][6]  

An ardent feminist and possible lesbian, Bates wrote America the Beautiful to challenge selfish gain not going to noble causes.  (Till selfish gain no longer stain/The banner of the free!) When we sing her song in church or in public, seldom does the word, feminist, come to mind.  What does the song mean?  What do songs mean?  When we sing old songs, we almost never know the original meaning or even the author.  Where does the meaning within our breast come?  It comes from us.  It comes from whatever we think the song means or have been taught that it means.  Perhaps most of those that sang Healer, knew nothing of Guglielmucci's cancer.  Perhaps most did not know that he lied about his cancer.  Definitely most that sing Healer today do not have cancer.  The singers invest the lyrics with whatever meaning they find appropriate.