Waving the Red, White and Blue: Music for Political Times
Published in the PSC CUNY Retirees Chapter Newsletters: October 2020
Happy Days Are Here Again will forever be linked with FDR and the 1932 national Democratic Convention. Despite hard times, hope seemed possible for a country struggling through the Great Depression. In 1962 Barbara Streisand recorded this song with sadness.
In 1992 at the Democratic Convention, Bill Clinton chose Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop, a new generation’s motto with rock and roll. Barack Obama connected with Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours), which showed his enthusiasm for new voters and Black supporters. David Axelrod, his chief campaign manager, used this song as his cell phone’s ring tone whenever he received Obama’s phone call.
Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 Born in the USA was not a patriotic ode but a lament about workingclass life. His tune and words were bleak rather than buoyant. Springsteen sang this song with a fierce energy and the words’ meaning often was ignored. “Born in a dead man’s town… down in the shadows of the penitentiary, out by the gas fires near the refinery. I’m ten years burning down the road.” This was not an optimistic sentiment but waving the flag in defeat. When Ronald Reagan, not understanding the song’s despair, began using it at the 1984 Republican National Convention, Springsteen ordered him to stop.
In 2020 Joe Biden used Springsteen’s Rise Up as a background theme at the convention. The singer and his musician-wife, Patti Scialfa, appeared for a moment in a video. Both were in this Studs Terkel display of diverse citizens. John Legend sang Glory from the movie Selma. The lyrics, the mood, and the video showed the Black community’s resilience.
Old-fashioned songs are not often highlighted at conventions. My Country Tis of Thee sounded dated but a last verse defined its political significance. Samuel Francis Smith, a student at Andover Theological Seminary, wrote the standard verses in 1834. In 1843 A.G. Duncan added these lyrics:
“My country tis of thee
Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride
From everywhere mountainside, thy
deeds shall ring.
Abolitionists routinely added this verse at the end of the song.
Irving Berlin’s song God Bless America had an old-fashioned feeling. He fled from Russia with his family due to violent anti-Semitism and was forever grateful to live in the United States. Woody Guthrie was cynical about Berlin’s depiction of America. He felt his This Land is Your Land better conveyed our country’s spirit.
Yet Berlin was not mindless in his devotion to America. In 1933 he wrote Supper Time for the Broadway show As Thousands Cheered. This play served as a revue using songs that represented the different sections of the newspaper. For a somber newspaper heading, shown on stage, he included these words, “unknown Negro lynched by frenzied mob.”
Accompanying it was Supper Time: “Supper time, I should set the table, cause it’s supper time, Somehow I’m not able,’ cause this man o ‘mine, ain’t comin’ home no more.” The song showed Ethel Water’s devastation in dealing with her husband’s lynching. How will she tell the children? This violent act is never mentioned. Audra McDonald, Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Streisand—all have recorded Supper Time, but it is not well-known to the general public. Berlin was more complex than many of his peers imagined.
Phil Ochs used political events for inspiration. He saw his role as a singing journalist. In his ballad Power and Glory, he wrote of the United States, “she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor, only as a free as a padlocked prison door.” In 1963 when he played at the Newport Folk Festival, this Guthrie-esque anthem was a major success.
Reflecting on these tunes with their core beliefs about America, I remember the words of Albert Camus: “I should like to love my country and still love justice.”