Nuestro Himno « More shameless remarks by Larko

Nuestro Himno

Saturday, April 29, 2006 at 1:48 | In USA | 6 Comments
Tags: George W Bush

How do you like this version (courtesy of the New York Times) of "Star-Spangled Banner", the US national anthem? I find it beautiful, baring in mind that I am a musical illiterate. But it almost sounds better than the official version of the anthem. Listening to Nuestro Himno almost makes you think that America (meaning USA) is more than Hollywood, Big Mac and all that stuff. You would almost think that there is such a thing as a cultural diversity in the new continent.

Not a chance, says George W Bush according to the NYT:

When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: ''I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.''

Those are the words of the president of a country that was founded by immigrants and people whose ancestors were immigrants. English was hardly spoken at all in the American continent when those ancestors arrived.

This is what I recently read somewhere:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all men. Not just those who speak English. Your language is a cruicial part of how you experience the pursuit of happiness.

Adam Kidron, who released Nuestro Himno, comments in the NYT article:

''We instead view `Nuestro Himno' as a song that affords those immigrants that have not yet learned the English language the opportunity to fully understand the character of the Star-Spangled Banner, the American flag and the ideals of freedom that they represent'

Looks to me that a British music producer understands the pronounced idea of the United States of America better than the president of the United States.

6 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

their official language is english, i think thats why

Comment by novice.blogger — Saturday, April 29, 2006 #
but cant speak much about the US. for countries like canada they ought to have french and english versions of canadian anthem

Comment by novice.blogger — Saturday, April 29, 2006 #
Actually, funny as it may sound, English has never officially been established as the official langauge of USA. It has just turned out to be one due to practical considerations. As for Canada, both English and French are official languages and "Oh Canada" has lyrics in both languages.

Comment by Larko — Saturday, April 29, 2006 #
Thats interesting

Comment by novice.blogger — Saturday, April 29, 2006 #
English is of course de facto the language of the government dating back to the time when most of what is now known as the US was under the British crown. While both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in English, neither document establishes the position of the language.

Comment by Larko — Saturday, April 29, 2006 #
I honestly don’t like the song itself, but I see nothing wrong with having the Star Spangled Banner translated. It’s just more of a personal music preference than conservative indignation. I wrote a little piece on it here:
http://spanish-translation-blog.spanishtranslation.us/translation-of-the-us-national-anthem-2009-06-05.html

Comment by Justin — Friday, June 5, 2009 #