Where did Irving Berlin get the inspiration for this passionate, transcendent hymn to all things American?
At least, the first six notes of the chorus are the same as “God Bless America,” as music historian Jody Rosen has pointed out.
Such humorous “ethnic” ditties were all the rage in the early 1900s, when Berlin began his career. “It Takes the Irish to Beat the Dutch,” “Come Down to Your Italian Romeo” and “Abraham Jefferson Washington Lee” were some of the more mentionable ones.
Berlin, though Jewish himself, was not above writing “Yiddle on Your Fiddle Play Some Ragtime.” So Mose and his nose were probably not unknown to him.
From such questionable beginnings came a patriotic treasure. Only in America.
“Answer records” are an old story in pop music. Chuck Berry wrote “Back in the U.S.A.”; The Beatles responded with “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Tenafly’s Lesley Gore answered her own hit, “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want to,” with “It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry.” In 1984, the hip-hop hit “Roxanne, Roxanne” was followed by “Roxanne’s Revenge,” “Do the Roxanne,” “The Parents of Roxanne,” “Roxanne’s a Man” and at long last “The Final Word — No More Roxanne (Please).”
This is the great tradition that folksinger Woody Guthrie was tapping into when he responded in 1945 to “God Bless America” with “This Land is Your Land” — originally titled “God Blessed America for Me.”
