Column: Thanks for Listening

When I was growing up, the following songs were familiar both in my home as well as at my school. Everyone just seemed to always know the words and we sang them a lot. I have noticed with sadness that over the last few days as well as the last few years the overwhelming amount of people who do not know either these songs or the words to them. I thought it would be a good idea to write the words here so that more people could start getting familiar with them again.

 

‘God Bless America’

God bless America,

Land that I love,

Stand beside her and guide her

Through the night with a light from above;

 

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans white with foam,

God bless America,

My home, sweet home.

God bless America,

My home, sweet home.

— Irving Berlin

 

‘Star Spangled Banner’

O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

 

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more!

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave.

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

 

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

— Francis Scott Key

 

‘America the Beautiful’

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern impassion’d stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine ev’ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev’ry gain divine!

O Beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam,

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

— Katharine Lee Bates

 

‘America’

My country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims’ pride,

From every mountain side

Let freedom ring.

 

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills,

My heart with rapture thrills

Like that above.

 

Let music swell the breeze,

And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom’s song;

Let mortal tongues awake;

Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

 

Our fathers’ God to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To thee we sing,

Long may our land be bright

With freedom’s holy light,

Protect us by thy might

Great God our King.

— Samuel F. Smith

 

(Additional lyrics you may have heard were added later by other authors.)

 

‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

 

(Chorus)

His day is marching on.

 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemnors, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.”

 

(Chorus)

Since God is marching on.

 

He has sounded from the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

 

(Chorus)

Our God is marching on.

 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

 

(Chorus)

While God is marching on.

— Julia Ward Howe

 

Thank you to every soldier and veteran and their families for giving us the ultimate gift — our freedom.

 

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer’s column normally appears every Thursday. Look for columnist Al Batt this Thursday and then a return to Wednesday next week.