Patriotism is English-only!

Señor Presidente yo quiero pedirle por favor
Que pavimenten las calles de mi barrio
Como donde vive usted, ye ye ye
Señor Presidente yo quiero pedirle por favor
Que nos arreglen los parques de mi barrio
Como los pinos usted, ye ye ye
- Gutavo Velázquez Rivera, "Señor Presidente"

Gloria Trevi, who recorded that song on her Cómo Nace El Universo album, suggested that maybe she should substitute for those last two lines:

Señor Presidente yo quiero pedirle por favor
Que nos pinten las casas de mi barrio
Como la Casa Blanca de usted

[Mr. President I want to ask you a favor
That we paint the houses of my neighborhood
Like the White House of yours]

This is cute:

Via Brad DeLong George W. Bush Objects to the Singing of the "Star Spangled Banner" in Yiddish (permalink isn't "perma"), I see this post by Jack Balkin Oy vey! Der Star spengld bener! Balkinization blog 04/28/06).

The Yiddish text is also a reminder of how German Yiddish is. Yiddish is basically Middle High German with some influence from Hebrew and Polish.

There's also a German text, as well as an earlier Spanish text. Star-Spangled Debate: Spanish version of national anthem stirs temper, not hearts, of some conservatives by Jim Rutenberg San Francisco Chronicle/New York Times 04/29/06:

This is not the first time the national anthem has been translated. The Library of Congress offers another Spanish version, "La Bandera de las Estrellas," translated in 1919 for the U.S. Bureau of Education, as well as several German songsheets of uncertain age celebrating "das Banner mit Sternen."

And that's not all. The whole dang tune is furrin', too!


Just look at this:

The anthem's tune, too, is of foreign origin. Its first published form, created not long after Francis Scott Key wrote the poem in 1814, included instructions that it be sung to the tune of a then-popular song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." That song was written in the mid-1760s by a London society of amateur musicians seeking a complex melody to show off their baritone's skills. It is a bawdy celebration of song and drinking named for Anacreon, a Greek poet.

Whut the hail? We caint be havin' our sacred National Anthem be usin' some foreign tune! And a foreign tune about some other kind of foreigners, even! Why caint we have a good ole Amurcan tune to use, huh?

I'm mean, hey, did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington use some kind of foreign ideas when they wrote the Declaration and the Constitution and stuff? Of course not! We didn't import no foreigners to help us fight the Revolution, now did we? Well, of course we didn't!!! Kosciuszko, Lafayette, Von Steuben, sure they had funny names but those ole boys were 100% red-blooded Amurcans!

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