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From her plains and mountains, we have sprung,
To keep the faith with those who went before. . . .
Our marching song will come again,
Simple as a hit tune, deep as our valleys.
High as our mountains, strong as the people who made it.
For I have always believed it and I believe it now and you know who I am.
(Chorus) Who are you? America!**
Year ago fat Singer Kate Smith launched, and recorded for Victor, a song called God Bless America. Sales of the record jumped 13% when Poland was invaded, have leaped with every subsequent invasion. Throughout the U. S. today, many people rise, bare their heads when God Bless America is played. Currently Tin Pan Alley is rushing out songs like Defend Your Country, I'm a Yank Full of Happiness, I Am an American ("Shout—Wherever you may be, I AM AN AMERICAN"). Yet none of these songs has attained the current popularity of Ballad for Americans.
Paul Robeson's Victor recording of the Ballad, currently selling 200% better than a month ago (total: 20,000 albums), is the popular number most in demand at the R. C. A. exhibit at the New York World's Fair. Last week the Republican National Convention was opened with a performance of the Ballad, somewhat tamer than Robeson's, by Baritone Ray Middleton. The Republicans were reported to have considered inviting Robeson to sing, decided against it because of his color. Until New Dealers twitted them about it, the Republicans were apparently unaware that Ballad for Americans was written originally for a WPA Theatre Project show in Manhattan. Nor did they seem to have reflected that Paul Robeson and the authors of the Ballad—John Latouche (words), Earl Robinson (music)—are well-known Leftists.
Baritone Robeson (Rutgers College, Phi Beta Kappa and four Rs; Columbia University Law School) has long admired Soviet Russia, sent his son to school there because he believes the U. S. S. R. freer of race prejudice than the U. S. He denies that he is a Communist or fellow traveler. Last week Mrs. Robeson, who chaperones her husband in interviews, shushed him on politics, said "there is a witch hunt on in America now." Asked if Communism is compatible with the U. S, Constitution, the Robesons declined to reply.
Balladeer Robinson, a tall young man from the State of Washington, has expressed his political convictions in numerous songs. His Horace Greeley (words by Jack Shapiro) alters that editor's most celebrated bit of advice to read. "Join your union and go Left, young man, go Left." Abe Lincoln* indicates a lively resentment at G. O. P. claims on old Abe. This song, launched on Broadway in Hellzapoppin and widely sung by Left-wingers, performs the feat of fitting a rousing, rhythmic tune to a passage from Lincoln's first inaugural address:
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary
Of the existing government,
They can exercise their constitutional right of amending it,
Or their revolutionary right To dismember or overthrow it. <BR>
* Copyright 1940, The Nation.
** Copyright 1940, Robbins Music Corp., New York City. Used by permission of copyright owner.