God Bless America accompanied by the UCLA Band at the 1976 Rose Bowl. During the Super Bowl LI halftime show, a pre-recorded intro, recorded by Lady Gaga, who headlined the halftime show, was played featuring this song and "This Land is Your Land". The Indianapolis 500 is traditionally held at the end of May, and "God Bless America" has been sung there since 2003. The song "America the Beautiful" was sung before, but it was switched to "God Bless America" in the post-9/11 era. The song for many years was performed by Florence Henderson, a native Hoosier, and a friend of the Hulman-George
Irving Berlin release near the end of the Depression, which had by then gone on for nine years enshrined a "strain of official patriotism intertwined with a religious faith that runs deep in the American psyche," stated the "New York Times". Berlin's daughter, Mary Ellin Barrett, states that the song was actually "very personal" for her father, and was intended as an expression of his deep gratitude to the nation for merely "allowing" him, an immigrant raised in poverty, to become a successful songwriter. "To me," said Berlin, "'God Bless America' was not just a song but an expression of my feeling