My Country, ’Tis of Thee

When I was a kid, the only patriotic song in our church hymnal was "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Somehow I thought then that the title meant that the country was singing about God. It was only recently that I realized that the song actually is about the country.

But it does contain a fourth verse that is addressed to God:

Our fathers' God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!

The song was written in 1831 by Samuel Francis Smith, a 23-year-old student at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. He points out that we rightly do sing to God in a patriotic song because he is the author our liberty and that freedom is a holy thing. He ends the song by calling on God for protection and addressing him as our king.

Here's a famous rendition of the song by Marian Anderson in 1939. She had been denied the opportunity to sing it at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall because she was black, so Eleanor Roosevelt leaned on Secretary of the Interior to have her sing it at the Lincoln Memorial, which turned out to be a much more appropriate and memorable location.

And here is a version that I really enjoyed. It's sung by choir without any fanfare or extravagance. And it contains all four verses.