Who needs a voluptuously rhinestone-encrusted bra when a sensible, unforgiving, long-line Warner’s girdle will do? Who needs straggly bleach blond when ferociously tight curls engineered by a home perm will do?  And finally, who needs pointy-toed spike heels when chunky, platform, round-toed pumps will suffice?

Decades before America thought it needed to be entertained by the likes of a titillating Lady Gaga, there was a practical 200 pound, full-cheeked girl who won over our hearts. With little more than a twin streak of lipstick partnered with plucked and penciled eyebrows, her makeup-less face radiated a simple sincerity, while her overly ample shoulders could have been easily coveted by the most strapping of Viking linebackers.

One could not have lived through the 1940s and not known her, for she was America’s songbird.  Indeed, she so inspired us with her straight-talk singing—delivered in a velvety contralto that was as rich as hot butterscotch on ice cream—that even today a familiar phrase describes the impact she had on us: “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

Who was this beloved fatty and what did she sing?

The youngest of three daughters, Kate Smith failed to talk until she was four years old.  Who’s to say I’m wrong, but I’m thinking the good Lord intended this delay while he purposely used the long and worrisome interlude to allow her vocal cords to mature without the bothersome interruption of childhood chatterings.  The delay worked, for only a year later she was singing in church socials.  Kate never had a singing lesson in her life.  Her remarkable range of two and a half octaves was enough.

Unknown to Kate Smith, the first twinges of her fame began in 1918 when Irving Berlin wrote an American military revue named “Yip Yip Yaphank.”  In one of the show’s songs, he implored God to “stand beside us and guide us” through the dark nights of World War I.  The tune, however, somehow didn’t feel right, so Berlin put it aside.  It stayed there for the next twenty years.  Then in 1938, he felt an urge to revamp it when the world, still unable to stop hating itself, was brewing up an even more devastating war.

Berlin chose Armistice Day,  Nov. 11, 1938, (the anniversary of the end of WW I), for the song’s resurrection.  The woman he chose to sing it was our fat lady, an unpretentious, down home Virgina girl bursting at the seams with wholesome country goodness.  Her stardom was already underway as at the age of eight she had begun singing in vaudeville revues, entertaining America’s army troops stationed in the Washington area. As time progressed, she went on to host her own CBS radio show where troves of devoted fans clustered around their wooden Magnavoxes listening to her sumptuous voice coming through the cloth covered speakers. I was one of them.

We, of course, could not see her on the radio standing in front of the over-sized, tin can microphone, but photos reveal she was ramrod straight, strapped into a sturdily confining corset over which she wore a button-down-the-front, flowered rayon frock, the hemline modestly ending a handful of inches above her puffy ankles.  But, we didn’t need the image of her out-of-sight wardrobe to win us over.  All we had to do with listen to the deep-throated, velutinous resonance that issued forth from under her double chin.

Kate’s music was delivered without rancor, complications or theatrics. It was straight from the heart with no flourishes or manipulated riffs. She didn’t need any.  The richness and sincerity of her communication was enough. When she belted out her music, America got it; her contralto message as clear as a Windexed window.  And with its honesty, she mesmerized us.

When Kate Smith sang “God Bless America,” she tapped into the national psyche with a fervent prayer that beseeched God to keep us safe from the impending war.  So smitten was the public by her sensational rendering, they hailed the song as the new American national anthem and Kate as the First Lady of Radio.

And then there is today. How ridiculous the current singers appear when they open our sporting events with their hacked versions of the National Anthem.  One would think the song was all about them instead of the song inspiring us to deep thought and action.  Their unnecessary and mistaken drama, forced upon us when they strain to hold the high note in “land of the fre-e-e-e,”  only convinces me of their utter lack of understanding of the lyric’s intentions.  Those words were never meant to be about me, me, me, but rather about us, us, us. They could learn a lot from Kate Smith who conveyed that meaning thoroughly. Her forthrightness delivered not only the uncompromising messenger, but also the message.

One could surely say that Irving Berlin and Kate Smith were an unlikely pairing. She was born in 1907 to a father who owned the Capitol News Company, whereas he, in 1892, was a Jewish lad who at age five immigrated to the U.S. One could argue that who was he, a foreigner, to speak through his music of a personal relationship with America?  And yet he did.  Kate and he both did.  The combination was magic.

Berlin went on to create an incredible legacy of glitzy, sentimental, gut wrenching songs.  We remember them as stretching from “Putting On the Ritz” to “White Christmas.”   After his death at the astonishing age of 101, his daughter revealed that her understanding of “God Bless America” was not about the land that we love, but rather the land that her father loved.  And the song was his thank you to the country that had taken in the immigrant boy who made good. God bless Irving Berlin.  God bless Kate Smith.  God bless America.