Can we just retire the song God Bless America? Please please please? I hate that
song. I don't think anyone but Kate Smith should ever be allowed to sing it
again, and I think she's dead, so that's safe. (Do I mean Kate Smith? The old
woman who used to sing it at hockey games, whoever she was.)
I was
afraid, when they announced Celine Dion wold be singing it at the SuperBowl, that
it would be instead of the national anthem. It is NOT the national anthem, dammit,
no matter how many times it's been perpetrated on an innocent public since
September 11, 2001. I have never been one to believe that an important subject is
justification for bad words -- Q wrote something to the effect that it was
important for a nation to develop its poetry "because we still have heroes to
celebrate". (Scott had just died in Antarctica.) That's still true.
And whose dumbass idea was it to have Celine Dion sing it? The
woman's a Canadian, for cripes sake.
I was immensely relieved when
they brouy out the Dixie Chicks to sing the REAL anthem. They did some sweet
harmonies on it, too, and the crisp salutes of a diverse military group was
actually touching.
But if people want another song to add to The
Star-Spangled Banner, which certainly has its drawbacks (i.e. most Americans can't
actually sing it), can't we sing something like America the Beautiful? Or, since
I'm still an unregenerate radical, how about This Land is Your Land or Phil Ochs'
Power and Glory?