American tune
Members of the 107th Congress stood on the Capitol steps on Sept. 11, 2001, relaying information they’d just received from the Bush administration to a tangle of television cameras and microphones. The nation watched as the representatives slowly, and seemingly spontaneously, began to sing “God Bless America.” For Harvard ethnomusicology graduate student Sheryl Kaskowitz it was a pivotal moment, both for the song and for the role of music in public life. Kaskowitz studies cultural shifts in the song’s meaning and the way it was used, by whom, and in what context, from 1940 through post–9/11. “People are often surprised when I tell them I’m writing my dissertation on one song. But I’m using ‘God Bless America’ as a lens through which I can look at American history, and the role and function of communal singing in American culture.” “The song had a huge resurgence in popularity after 9/11 partly because it’s one...