this anthem thing...

[nolly]

OK, I see two basic sets of reactions from people.
I see people reacting to Bush's "keep it in English" statement, which was documentably inane -- not only is there a long history of translation, including ones promoted by the gov't, Bush was singing the anthem in Spanish on the campaign trail.

I see people reacting to the song itself, and this is what I don't understand. Can someone explain what, if anything, is problematic about it?

Comments

Anthem links?

[snippy]

I haven't seen anyone (online or off) reacting badly to the national anthem--got links?

Re: Anthem links?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Not the anthem itself, but the new Spanish rendition, which is, depending on who's talking, a new translation, a bastardization, or something inspired by/based on the Star Spangled Banner. The translation, from what I've seen is not entirely faithful, but not all that bad, either; i've not had a chance to listen to it, but I'm told the music is also changed somewhat.

Re: Anthem links?

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Well, it is translated poetry, and a "singing translation." Any anime fan that hears will probably end up going "Oh. Right. Nevermind."

Re: Anthem links?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Even given that, I have to grant the point about the original not calling the flag "sacred". The semantic changes after the first verse do seem significant -- but my read is "OK, it's a different song" not "They broke my anthem!"

Re: Anthem links?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

News stories here (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=bush+anthem+english); I'd rather not link to entries from my flist at this point, but if people reading this want to link to their own posts on the topic, that's fine.