“O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plane…!” --"America the Beautiful”, Katherine Lee Bates, 1913
I think it’s time for America to consider singing a new national anthem.
(Well, I hope that got your attention!)
But seriously: last week after two years of being away from baseball, I attended a game live and in person and sang the national anthem with the rest of those assembled. That ritual has a very local connection. The first time “The Star-Spangled Banner” was performed at a game in modern times was at the 1918 World Series, between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. It being wartime, a military band in attendance played the song during the seventh inning stretch and from then on it became a Word Series tradition. During World War II, the playing of the anthem spread to all professional baseball games, a way to unite people in that very patriotic time. And so, it continues to this day.
Don’t get me wrong. I like well enough our current national anthem, written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. Originally a poem and first-hand account in the War of 1812, of the British bombing Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor, his words were later married to the tune of an old British drinking song. Congress confirmed its status as our national song in 1931. I do enjoy singing it, though you need quite a range to hit all the notes. It just makes me wonder if there might be a better song to capture who we are as America in 2021, and how we live together in this democracy, this amazing, frustrating, and fragile experiment in government, first declared and begun some 245 July 4ths ago.
We’ve got several alternative songs to choose from.
How about “This Land is Your Land”, written and performed by the folk singer Woody Guthrie, first penned and performed in 1940? The refrain “this land was made for you and me” certainly speaks to the hope that our nation is not just a collection of self-interested individuals, but is in fact founded in community, a community of folks who all should be able to equally declare: this land is made for you and for me. Together. That America finally belongs to no one class or race or ideology or group but instead is the province of all of us, no one left out. I like that dream and its aspirational quality. It’d be fun to sing it in a big crowd at a ballgame, that’s for sure.
Put your hand up if you vote for “This Land Is Your Land”.
Some might advocate that “God Bless America”, written during World War 1 in 1918 and then revised in 1945: maybe that should be our national song. As a person of faith, I’ll confess I’m a bit nervous about asking that “God Bless America!” without also making sure to remember that God in fact, blesses the whole world. No exceptions. What I do love about the song is the backstory of its author, Irving Berlin. He was a first-generation Jewish immigrant whose family fled the violent anti-Semitism of the Russian empire. He and millions of other immigrants came here for freedom and new lives, just like so many immigrants do today. His unabashed love for America, reflects the kind of joyous and grateful patriotism that marks the immigrant experience. After all, other than the Native Americans, we all came here from somewhere else, right?
All those in favor of “God Bless America” say “aye!”
But I’ve got a soft place in my heart for a song we don’t sing much anymore. In large part it’s been forgotten by our country. It’s “America, the Beautiful” written in 1895 by Katherine Lee Bates, a professor of English at Wellesley College. Born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Bates was the rare woman then who received a first-class college education. She went to Wellesley College, was a schoolteacher, and a worker for women’s rights and the vote. While on a cross country trip in 1893, traveling with her lifelong companion Katherine Coman, Bates traveled to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado.
As she noted in her diary, “Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.” What I love about her song is that it calls America to live up to the greatness of the ideals it proclaims. “America! America! God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy soul, in self-control, thy liberty in law.” Maybe we need a national anthem that doesn’t ignore our flaws or celebrate a military victory but is instead humble in its patriotism. A song that recognizes our imperfections but then challenges us to always work to be a better people and citizenry. To take words like freedom and liberty and justice for all seriously.
Anyone agree with my vote for “America the Beautiful”?
It’s important to think about America this post July 4th week. How we sing about ourselves. How we see ourselves. Who are we and who do we want to become as America and Americans? That’s a question being asked a lot these days, and rightfully so.
And so yes, may God mend our every flaw. I’d sing that. How about you?
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