Immigrant Songs

With the New Cold War heating up, and American citizens under siege at home, it’s no small wonder that a Russian named Berlin can still claim to have composed this nation’s best-loved song. Born in the Russian Empire in 1888, the immigrant Irving Berlin wrote both the words and the music to “God Bless America.”

Berlin composed the song in the wartime year of 1918 in the only key he claimed to be able to play comfortably in: F-sharp. Noel Coward, a Brit, mistakenly thought that Berlin did...