By Janice Lindsay
Contributing Writer
Speaking of immigrants – as we often are these days – here’s a story of one immigrant who gave us a most American piece of Americana.
The little guy was four when he arrived in New York in 1893. He was the youngest of eight in a poor Jewish family who escaped pogroms in Russia and came to America looking for a better life. When his father died three years later, little Israel (Izzy) Baline helped the family by earning pennies selling newspapers and delivering telegrams.
He clearly had musical ability. At fourteen, he quit school and got a job as a singing waiter in saloons, bars, and a cafe.
He also worked as a “song plugger” for a publisher of sheet music. Before records and radio, most families had a piano and someone who could play. They needed sheet music of popular songs. As a plugger, Izzy would attend a live performance, applaud loudly when the singer sang a song from his publisher, or jump up and “spontaneously” lead the audience in singing the chorus while the performer acted surprised. Result: the audience learned the song and bought the music.
At his café job, he wrote and sang parodies of popular songs. A waiter in a rival café had written a song for the café that was published and got some publicity for the place. Israel’s boss asked him to compose a song for his cafe. Working with the café’s pianist, he wrote his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy.” The song was published in 1907, earning him 37 cents in royalties and a new name. The printer unintentionally changed his name from Israel Baline to Israel Berlin. He later chose Irving.
Irving Berlin was on his way, not that his way was well-traveled or easy. He had other jobs while he wrote. He eventually got a job writing songs for a publisher of sheet music and wrote all types of popular songs, building his skills, making friends in the music industry, earning a reputation.
Then, in 1911, came his tune “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (“Come on and hear, come on and hear, Alexander’s Ragtime Band…”) Some of the popular singers of the day liked it and performed it. It was a huge hit, selling 1.5 million copies of sheet music in 18 months, earning enough money for Berlin to start his own publishing company.
World War I provided the opportunity for Berlin, drafted into the Army, to write his first musical show. Stationed at Camp Upton in New York, he wrote “Yip Yip Yaphank” that was performed at the camp, then on Broadway, raising money for a service center at the camp.
While writing that musical, he wrote one song that he decided not to include. He tucked it away.
Fast-forward two decades during which Berlin wrote many songs and shows. Traveling in Europe in 1938, he witnessed the growing threat of fascism and Nazism, which made him grateful to be American.
When he returned home, the popular singer Kate Smith asked him to write a song for her radio show where she would celebrate patriotism and what was then called Armistice Day.
Berlin remembered the song he had rejected twenty years earlier. He gave Smith the rights to the song for free, stipulating that any profits from it should go the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
That song was “God Bless America.”
Is there any song more thoroughly American than that? We all know it. Some consider it our second national anthem. And an immigrant wrote it. That seems a bit ironic, but so American.
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