Frank Sinatra sings “The House I Live In” at The Concert for the Americas in 1982.
In 1945, Frank Sinatra starred in “The House I Live In,” a 10-minute film with a theme of racial and religious tolerance. As part of it, he sang the title song (originally from the 1942 Broadway revue “Let Freedom Ring”), with lines such as “The children in the playground, the faces that I see/All races and religions, that’s America to me.” The song was co-written by Earl Robinson (music), and Abel Meeropol (lyrics), with Meeropol using the name Lewis Allan.
The film won an honorary Academy Award the next year, and Sinatra kept singing “The House I Live In.” In 1982, he sang a powerful version of it at the Concert for the Americas in the Dominican Republic, which also featured Buddy Rich, Heart and Santana.
“I’d like to think the words fit not only my country, but this country, and all of the Americas, today,” he said while introducing it.
Check it out, below.
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.
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2 comments
This list is awesome! Please consider a song recorded by The Andrews Sisters called “Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J.” Thanks.
I’d love to but unfortunately, I can’t find an embeddable video, and I need that to do a post.