On a slightly more light-hearted note, America the Beautiful would also be easier to sing. (That tune is singable in a bar? By drunks? Ah, well, I suppose they don't care if they can hit all the notes.)
I will admit that I don't know most of these songs by name (although I might recognize some if heard), but this essay makes me want to rush out and listen to them all. Thank you.
I think that the eighteenth-century drunks who sang Anacreon in Heaven (or tried to) were aristocrats in clubs and private dining rooms, rather than ordinary guys in bars. http://www.contemplator.com/america/anacreon.html
I agree with you that "America The Beautiful" should replace our existing national anthem. The words are much more beautiful, more expressive of American ideals than Keys'. Plus it is far, far easier to sing. The existing national anthem is out of the range of most singers.
Yup, making America the Beautiful our national anthem has been suggested for years, not least because so few singers can hit the high notes in Star-Spangled Banner (which is why listening to celebrities sing it at baseball games is usually cringe-inducing).
But, like Benjamin Franklin's suggestion that the turkey, not the eagle, should be our national bird, it will never be followed.
Oh, word. I love our national anthem, but I can't sing. At. All. So whenever I sing it, I have to jump up and down between octaves(?) and hope that my singing is disguised by everyone else's around me.
Don't get them started...joetexxFebruary 13 2010, 21:55:05 UTC
Southern sympathizers in the US on "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"' that rabid expression of Yankee progressiveism which helped fuel the brutal war of Yankee Aggression. Personally I think it a stirring air - and where would American lit and popular history be without 'terrible swift sword', dreadful lightning' and 'grapes of wrath'?
Then again my ancestors lined up on both sides in the Late Unpleasantness.
Or French reactionaries on Roget de Lisle's rabble from that scurvy Mediterranean seaport...
Re: Don't get them started...fpbFebruary 13 2010, 21:59:27 UTC
Roget de Lisle was actually a monarchist and nearly lost his head in the bad few months. But yes, I have come across some "interesting" southern individuals and opinions online. I don't mind because, honestly, I have enough sane southerners and texans among my friends not to be troubled, and besides, we have our own nutcases in Italy.
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I will admit that I don't know most of these songs by name (although I might recognize some if heard), but this essay makes me want to rush out and listen to them all. Thank you.
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But, like Benjamin Franklin's suggestion that the turkey, not the eagle, should be our national bird, it will never be followed.
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Not to mention that no self-respecting nation goes around changing its national anthem on a whim.
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in the US on "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"'
that rabid expression of Yankee progressiveism which helped fuel
the brutal war of Yankee Aggression. Personally I think it a stirring
air - and where would American lit and popular history be without
'terrible swift sword', dreadful lightning' and 'grapes of wrath'?
Then again my ancestors lined up on both sides in the Late Unpleasantness.
Or French reactionaries on Roget de Lisle's rabble from that scurvy Mediterranean
seaport...
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before the September Massacres, the fall of the monarchy, and the Terror.
Andhe was an artilleryman. Viva Santa Barbara!
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