CoS singer/songwriter Jesse Palidofsky has written new verses for the well-loved song “America the Beautiful”, with 2020 in mind, and worked with some amazing musicians to perform it. This week he debuted a moving music video for the song.
“Dear Friends,
This has been a breathtakingly challenging year. Here is one humble-yet-fierce artistic offering for our individual and collective healing. Award winning Bluegrass vocalist Claire Lynch and award-winning Blues/Gospel vocalist Lea Gilmore perform a stunningly soul-filled duet of my revised and updated “America the Beautiful: 2020”.
In the spirit of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”, which sprang out of the depths of the Great Depression and called us to our better angels, America the Beautiful: 2020‘s three new verses uplift our spirits as they invoke the original promise of the patriot dream–while also inviting us to look squarely at the dramatic and undeniable challenges we face as a nation, and as citizens of a larger world in crisis. Please check it out!
–Jesse Palidofsky”
“O beautiful thy immigrants
Who hail from every land
Their hope and heart and diligence
Like gifts from God’s own hand
America! America!
Thy grace shall yet remain
To greet the poor who reach thy shore
With open arms again
O beautiful O Mother Earth
All nestle at your breast
Just as we sing with love and pride
So all nations are blessed
America! America!
Alone cannot abide
God give thee pause to mend thy flaws
With Truth thy only guide
O beautiful thy working folk
Built cities, tilled thy soil
Proud Africans in bloody chains
The wealth built from their toil
America! America!
God shed much grace on thee
So spread the love sent from above
From sea to shining sea
Ring sisterhood! Ring brotherhood!
From sea to shining sea“
Jesse Palidofsky and John Morris
Copyright 2020
How beautiful, How inclusive A way to go forward
The beauty, the dignity, and the simplicity of this “anthem” needs to be heard from”sea to shining sea” today and each day forward. I wept first at the assemblage of the native people, family, gathered on the native plains that was to become the United States of America despite their collective reverence for this land long before the first pilgrims. I weep for our losses and for our brave future. God Bless America.
Can one purchase a copy of this recording?
This is absolutely beautiful–brought tears to my eyes, for the country I want us to be.
Beautiful, Beautifu!! Time to get back to who we are as a national leader in the world with principled moral leaders running the country! Vote like our lives depend on it because it does!
Jessie, this is wonderful for my heart and soul.
Thanks. I will spread it around. Well done.
Glad to see you are still using your gift for others.
Jeanie