Jack Doppelt
Jan. 23, 2021
[A version of this article was published on Medium on Jan. 24, 2021]
A cursory listen to the national music showcased at this year's series of Inauguration events is a reminder of the opportunities to include other music in the pantheon.
There was of course "The National Anthem," "America the Beautiful," and at more and more events recently, "This Land Is Your Land," and "Amazing Grace."
The repertoire extends to hymns, marching songs, and adaptations of Broadway show tunes.
introducing the song for the first time in 1943]
Plenty of web sites offer their own best lists. Take 21 Patriotic Songs to Make You Proud to Be an American or The best patriotic songs.
The songs need not have been written with a non-partisan or non-ideological spirit so long as over time, a song's often caustic or piercing lessons lift and are transformed into whatever listeners want to read into them. With "This Land Is Your Land," a verse or two of Woody Guthrie's lyrics tends to be overlooked to get the job done. Jennifer Lopez's version this year segued into "America, The Beautiful" and a Spanish invocation, "Una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos, ignoring this verse, as most versions do:
"As I went walkin' I saw a sign there,
And on the sign, it said 'No Trespassing.'
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'.
That side was made for you and me."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'.
That side was made for you and me."
One song I often think of that fits the bill and that is particularly pertinent now is The House I Live In.
I've had both the Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson versions on my Spotify playlist. This morning I discovered a Sam Cooke version (as I careened down a rabbit hole to fill in some curiosities after watching the film, One Night in Miami). Now that’s covering some political landscape.
The corker is I also found a 10-minute short film with Sinatra in it that was made in 1945, just as WWII was ending. I also discovered a pack of savory ironies relating to the film:
The film was written by Albert Maltz, who was one of the Hollywood Ten who were jailed in 1950 for their refusal to testify before Congress about their alleged involvement with the Communist Party. They and many other entertainment industry figures were blacklisted and denied employment in the industry for years.
The film plot is Sinatra, playing himself, takes a break from a recording session and steps outside to smoke ‘em since he had ‘em. He sees a gang of local hoodlums of the day chasing a Jewish kid. He intervenes, with chit chat, then with a short speech replete with newsreel footage of the war, then he breaks into song. He drives home that we’re all Americans, that “one American's blood is as good as another's,” and that all our religions are to be respected equally.
As for the song itself, the music was written by Earl Robinson, who wrote the union organizing anthem "Joe Hill" and who also was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for being a member of the Communist Party.
The lyrics were written during the war, in 1943, by Abel Meeropol under the pen name Lewis Allan. About 15 years later, Meeropol adopted two boys, Michael and Robert, who’d been orphaned when their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a Jewish couple, were executed in 1953 for slipping top-secret intell on nuclear weapons to the Russians.
When the film premiered in 1957, Meeropol was pissed that a verse of the song was not used in the short. The film version deleted the phrase that referred to "my neighbors white and black." None of the three versions – Sinatra’s, Cooke’s, and even Robeson’s - that I have on spotify include it either. So here it is: “The house I live in, my neighbors White and Black, the people who just came here or from generations back, the town hall and the soapbox, the torch of Liberty, a home for all God's children, that's America to me.”
The film is in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry because in 2007, it was selected for preservation as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." As such, it’s now available on the World Wide Web.
[Click on the photo to view the 10-minute film short]
Or enter here - The House I Live In (1945).
Trigger warning: For me, it’s a crier.
Spolier alert: Stay for the last moments of the final scene. The kid is worth the wait, and the whole film is only 10 minutes.
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