With all the controversy last week surrounding the drunk country singer’s rendition of our national anthem at Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby. I’ve got to be honest.
I have never liked our national anthem.
We have at least half a dozen patriotic songs, two of them written by George M. Cohan, that would be better, although I can think of only one song that would make my list of the five best national anthems I’ll count down my three favorite national anthems and then give you two that would top the list if they actually were their nation’s official anthems.
Four of the five on my list are English-speaking countries, and knowing me, you might guess the one that isn’t.
We’ll start with the Motherland.
A fascinating song, one we stole the melody from for our own “My Country Tis of Thee,” and technically, the official anthem of the country of my ancestors back to the 14th century is “God Save the King.” It’s a truly majestic anthem, but I actually think “Rule Brittania” my be even better.
Next on the list is a former colony now a nation of the commonwealth, maybe the most joyous and peaceful song of any nation. You’ll hear it at many National Hockey League games as well as basketball and baseball games in Toronto.
Third of the list — first of the actual anthems — is one that is actually quite bloodthirsty. “La Marseillaise” was written in 1792 and is a call to arms for the French people, urging them to defend their country against the invaders of impure blood. Most Americans’ first knowledge of it might come from the scene in “Casablanca” where the Nazis are singing a German song and Victor Laszlo gets the French to drown them out.
This brings us to the two non-official national songs I think are better than our official ones. The first is another British Commonwealth nation, probably the one place in the world I have never visited that I would still like to see. I have seen so many movies about Australia, from classics like “On the Beach” and “Gallipoli” to little comedies like “Danny Deckchair” and “The Castle.”
My son has been to Australia twice and I definitely envy him that, especially since one of his two visits has been to Perth on the side of the country most Americans never see. Australians voted on a national anthem some years back, and this one came in second. It’s still the one most people think of when they think of the land down under.
As for the last best one that isn’t an official national anthem but ought to be, it actually came down to a tough choice. There are five or six songs that I think would have made a better national anthem than the one we’ve got. If you insist on honoring the flag, I love Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” and he also wrote the wonderful “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I’m fine with Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” as an anthem, although I dislike “God Bless the USA.”
Essentially it comes down to two wonderful songs for me, and I decided not to choose one over the other.
Here they are. You decide.
And the other one.