Some folks are aghast at the idea that the Star Spangled Banner might be translated into other languages. To sing it in Spanish is to some blasphemous, although as this article about the Russian anthem suggests, defining blasphemy is not all that easy: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6028-4.cfm. The article questions, among other things, whether making love to the anthem would be blasphemous or patriotic.
Title 36 of the US Code identifies the national anthem as the composition known as the Star Spangled Banner. The code does not specify an English language version, and I reckon that the Star Spangled Banner in any language is still the Star Spangled Banner, just as the Bible is the Bible and Hamlet is Hamlet. You can quibble with the translation, but it’s still the same work as far as I am concerned.
On occasion, the anthem is played without singing altogether, and it is commonly understood that the instrumental version alone is still the Star Spangled Banner even if listeners sing along in their heads in Klingon or Elvish.
In researching these issues, I learned that the “national march” is “The Stars and Stripes Forever”. Whenever I hear it, I can’t help but think or even sing aloud the version that goes: “Oh, be kind to your fine feathered friends, for that duck may be somebody’s mother. They live all alone in a swamp, where the weather is always damp. You may think that this is the end. Well it is.” To my way of thinking, this version is still the national march and a sight better than the one with the martial lyrics that usually accompany it.
The rose is the “national floral emblem”, and we all know that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
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2 comments:
Yeah.. to War-Mongering, "National greatness" State-Worshipping Conservatives, the National Anthem is the equivalent of a hymnal sung at mass.
"The article questions, among other things, whether making love to the anthem would be blasphemous or patriotic."
The pro-sex feminist, sex worker, and pornographer Annie Sprinkle (http://www.anniesprinkle.org/) once made a video of herself self-pleasuring to the Star Spangled Banner, as a statement of her own right to the pursuit of happiness.
"The rose is the 'national floral emblem'"
I didn't know that. I personally believe the rose is a symbol to which the American state most assuredly has no right.
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