Irving Berlin wrote more than 1,000 songs during a life that spanned more than 100 years. Many have become iconic parts of American culture, including such standards as “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “God Bless America,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
Berlin also wasn't afraid to use his music to offer social commentary on topics such as racial injustice. In 1933, he wrote what might have been the first anti-lynching song, "Supper Time" about a Black woman mourning the loss of her husband. It wasn't until 1939 that Billie Holiday first sang "Strange Fruit" by Abel Meeropol.
Berlin wrote "Supper Time" for a Broadway topical revue "As Thousands Cheer" in which it was sung by Ethel Waters, who said the song told "the whole tragic history of a race." It's since been performed by Carmen McRae and Audra McDonald, among others.
But there's a Berlin song that has been almost completely forgotten since it was introduced in 1941 and popularized in recordings that year by top British and American performers.
Fortunately, a Los Angeles-based swing band, Lizzy & the Triggerman has rediscovered Berlin's anti-Hitler song, "When That Man Is Dead and Gone," and began performing it at concerts. It's featured on their album "Live at Joe's Pub."
And if you give it a listen, it's clear how much this song strikes the right chord for these troubled times.
Yes, Irving Berlin, the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Russia after their home was burned down in a pogrom, definitely could be counted among the antifa ranks.
On February 1, 1941, Berlin introduced his two latest songs on the radio show "ASCAP On Parade" – "When That Man Is Dead and Gone" and the ballad "A Little Old Church In England" about a London church reduced to rubble by German bombs. "When That Man Was Dead And Gone" was performed again later that month at a benefit show for the British War Relief Society by the St. Elmo Johnson Choir.
At the time, Britain stood alone in the war against the fascist Axis powers with German bombs falling nightly on London and other cities. In the U.S., President Franklin D. Roosevelt was well aware of the threat to democracy posed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and adopted a pro-British policy.
But Roosevelt had to contend with Nazi-sympathizing, America First isolationists led by aviator Charles Lindbergh who accused the president of war mongering and opposed providing aid to Britain.
Berlin was acutely aware of the gathering storm clouds. On November 10, 1938, singer Kate Smith on her Armistice Day radio broadcast --marking the 20th anniversary of the end of World War I – performed for the first time a patriotic song composed by Berlin titled "God Bless America." A day earlier, the Nazis had carried out their anti-Jewish Kristallnacht pogrom. across Germany.
In a 1940 New York Times interview, Berlin said:
"Two years ago I was in Europe. It was the time of the Munich conference. Democracies were kowtowing to dictators, and one wondered when grasping hands would be stretched farther. When I got back, Kate Smith wanted a song that would sort of wake up America."
Berlin had originally written "God Bless America" in 1917 for his World War I Army show "Yip Yip Yaphank," but decided not to use it at the time. He then revised his lyrics. and added an introductory verse.
In a letter in 1954, Berlin explained that he changed a line from the original lyrics that went: "And guide her/To the right with a light from above."
He wrote:
It is obvious that the word 'right' had to be changed [...] In 1938 there was a right and a left and it had a different significance. So in changing it the song was improved when I said 'stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above.'"
He also added an introductory verse:
While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above
From the mountains, To the prairies,
To the ocean white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home
German folklorist Jurgen Kloss, on his song history website Just Another Tune wrote that "God Bless America" is about "gratitude for America as the country that gave a persecuted minority a new home. He is stating the difference between living in a "land that's free" - no matter how hard it is - and living under a despotic regime. ...
"Berlin - who’s life history was well-known in the USA at that time - implicitly attacked American nativists, xenophobic nationalists and those who were still denying the immigrants - especially those from Eastern Europe - their place in America, and he challenged them on their home turf."
After World War II, conservatives co-opted "God Bless America." MAGA cultists recently got into frenzy after Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, who's scheduled to perform the Super Bowl half-time show, apparently sat when "God Bless America" was played during the seventh inning stretch at a New York Yankees playoff game.
But ironically before the U.S. entered World War II, "God Bless America" was widely condemned by isolationists, racists and anti-Semites.
Kloss wrote:
Some critics had serious problems with the Americans singing a patriotic song by a Jewish songwriter from “Tin Pan Alley”, not only a local Ku Klux Klan Leader who urged for a boycott of the song “because it’s author [...] is Jewish.” (Furia, p. 195)
Berlin donated all the royalties from "God Bless America" to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.
Kloss wrote:
In the late 30s and early 40s “God Bless America” was the song of the anti-totalitarian and democratic America, the song of those who were demanding stronger measures against Hitler’s Germany and more support for Britain, of those who stood for ethnic and religious tolerance.
And Berlin himself sang the song at events to assist European refugees, support the British War Relief Society, and promote the Committee To Defend America By Aiding The Allies
By 1941, the situation in Europe had turned even darker after the fall of France left Britain alone and under constant air attack.
Berlin's daughter, Mary Ellin Barrett, wrote in her 1994 memoir about her parents' perspective:
“For my parents, though, the war in Europe remained frighteningly close [...] they genuinely believed, in the summer and fall of 1940 and well into the next year, that the Germans would win [...] Eventually, so they went their worst imaginings, he would conquer England, then Canada, then ‘make an arrangement’ with the United States that would amount to conquest. And if that happened, how would they protect their half-Jewish children? Flee to South America?
Politics became the stuff of their lives. As there were Democrats and Republicans, so now there were ‘interventionists’ and ‘isolationists. Early joiners of William Allen White’s Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, supporters of all of Roosevelt’s pro-British moves, my parents campaigned for the president even more vigorously in 1940 than they had in 1936” (Barrett, p. 186)
And it was in this context that Berlin composed "When That Man Is Dead And Gone." The song is actually quite edgy and daring – it's a catchy fox trot that predicts a bright future once a certain person is deceased.
On Feb. 19, 1941, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with Tex Beneke and The Modernaires handling the vocals released the first recording of the song. Then just five days later, Mildred Bailey and The Delta Rhythm Boys released their own version.
Here are the lyrics to Bailey's version. The song never actually mentions Hitler by name, but it's clear who is "Satan with a small moustache."
Satan, Satan thought up a plan
Dressed as a man
Walking the earth and since he began
The world is hell for you and me
But what a heaven it will be
When that man is dead and gone
When that man is dead and gone
We'll go dancing down the street
Kissing everyone we meet
When that man is dead and gone
What a day to wake up on
What a way to greet the dawn
Hap- hap- happy, yes indeed!
On the morning when we read
That that man is dead and gone
We've got a date
To celebrate
The day we catch up with that one man spreading hate
His account is overdrawn
And his chances are in pawn
Some fine day the news will flash
Satan with the small moustache
Is asleep beneath the lawn
When that man is dead and gone
Across the pond, the song's strong anti-Hitler sentiment led even more British performers to record the song, including Elsie Carlisle, Arthur Askey and most notably Al Bowlly and Jimmy Mesene, who billed themselves as The Radio Stars with Two Guitars.
Bowlly and Mesene recorded the song on April 2, 1941, Tragically, it turned out to be Bowlly's last recording. On April 17, Bowlly was killed by a German bomb that exploded in the street outside his flat.
Lizzy Shapiro wrote on Facebook that she decided to perform the song after hearing Bowlly's recording.
It's easy to write off swing as simply catchy dance music (which, of course, it is). But inside those swinging melodies hide powerful messages. Irving Berlin wrote "When That Man Is Dead and Gone" in 1941 about a certain evil dictator. It was only ever recorded by a handful of artists - including Glenn Miller, Mildred Bailey, and the criminally-underappreciated Al Bowlly. The reason more people don't know about Bowlly's genius is because two weeks after recording this song, he was killed in a Nazi airstrike in London.
After the '40s, the song fell into obscurity. Deeply inspired by Bowlly's record, we decided to do our own version, which has been a highlight of our live shows for many years.
Just make a small tweak to the lyrics – "Satan with an orange skin tone" – and the song becomes quite topical for these hellish times when we're challenging a would-be dictator spreading hate.
So hopefully more performers will be singing out loud and strong there own versions of "When That Man Is Dead and Gone."
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