Ballad For Americans

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"Ballad For Americans" (1939) is an American patriotic cantata with lyrics by John La Touche and music by Earl Robinson. Originally titled "The Ballad for Uncle Sam", it was originally written for a WPA theatre project called Sing for Your Supper.[1]

The "Ballad" was performed on the CBS radio network by Paul Robeson, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. Both Robeson and Bing Crosby had commercially successful recordings of the piece. In the 1940 presidential campaign it was played at both the Republican National Convention and that of the Communist Party. Its popularity continued through the period of World War II[2] — in autumn 1943, 200 African American soldiers performed the piece in a benefit concert at London's Royal Albert Hall[3] — but because of Robinson and Robeson's left-wing politics, it largely fell out of the general repertoire of American popular music during the Second Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. It has, nonetheless, been periodically revived, notably during the United States Bicentennial (1976).[2] There is also a well-known recording by Odetta, recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1960.

Invoking the American Revolution (it names several prominent revolutionary patriots and quotes the preamble of the Declaration of Independence), and the freeing of the slaves in the American Civil War (there is a brief lyrical and musical quotation of the spiritual "Go Down Moses"), as well as Lewis and Clark, the Klondike Gold Rush, and Susan B. Anthony, the piece draws an inclusive picture of America: "I'm just an Irish American, Negro, Jewish American, Italian, French and English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Scotch, Hungarian, Litwak, Swedish, Finnish American, Canadian, Greek and Turk and Czech and double-check American — I was baptized Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, Atheist, Roman Catholic — [etc.]"

The lyrics periodically point at elite skepticism toward its inclusive American vision ("Nobody who was anybody believed it") before coming back to its refrain:

For I have always believed it,
And I believe it now,
And now you know who I am.
(Who are you?)
America! America!

Many performers of the "Ballad" have made minor changes in the lyrics. For example, in the passage quoted above, the NYC Labor Chorus make several changes, including changing "Negro" to "African" and substituting "Jamaican" for "Litvak". Similarly, they add "Moslem" to the list of religions.[4] In a passage near the end that begins "Out of the cheating, out of the shouting," Robeson in his 1940 recording adds "lynchings" to the list[5]; the NYC Labor Chorus attempt to bring the piece up to date with:

Out of the greed and polluting,
Out of the massacre at Wounded Knee,
Out of the lies of McCarthy,
Out of the murders of Martin and John…[4]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Online notes from 2005 Paul Robeson Conference at Lafayette College. Accessed 31 January 2006.
  2. ^ a b Dreier & Flacks
  3. ^ "Ballad for Britons", Time, 11 October 1943
  4. ^ a b "Ballad For Americans" lyrics as given on the site of the NYC Labor Chorus.
  5. ^ Paul Robeson recording, accessed on the Lafayette College site

[edit] References