Whose National Anthem?
Just a quick thought on a gorgeous day spent marking papers and exams, and gardening–all this after a dentist’s visit that fixed two teeth ….don’t try to imagine the length of time I kept my mouth open, or the cost. But hey, teeth are so important, and yes, my main message to students throughout my tenure at Queen’s has been to floss!.
Query for the day: Why are some Americans, including Preisdent Bush, so upset that a new Spanish-language rendition of the the “Star-Spangled Banner” is now available? I heard it for the first time today and quite liked it. The version has verve and pizazz, and it brings to mind the fact that for a long time now, the anthem has been sung in diverse and multifarious ways. My first real excitement about this ponderous Bavarian drinking song came when Jimmi Hendrix did an amazing rendition at Woodstock in 1969. Sounded just like the Vietnam War. Huey Lewis and the News did a doo wop, barbershop version in San Francisco a few years later, and I thought that cool. Since then, we’ve heard numerous renditions of a really bad song. Indeed, this is perhaps the reason that so many performers before sporting events have forgotten or mangled the words, or merely made fools of themselves.
So what is the big deal about the English version of the song? Why are American patriots up in arms. Why are the self-avowed neo-minute men on southern and northern borders ready to fire first and ask questions later. Why is English all of a sudden so important, even though only one of five Americans can use the language correctly?
The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind–a lot of guilt, a culture under attack, a country under siege, an economy so far in debt that even Krusty the Klown can’t bail it out, and, I suspect, Bush’s perception that here is an issue that might bring him up from the lower rungs of the thirty percentile in popularity polls. The nativism that has emerged in the past month is shameful, but it belies a dominant political culture that is very much unsure of itself.