I'm not crazy about the sharp rhythm of the US anthem but I like the words, it's a song about hope when it seems bleakest. I saw a British commentator on CNN years ago talk about America's "militaristic" anthem that celebrated bombs and stuff, he didn't seem to understand it was about the war of 1812 and the rockets were not ours.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key and is the national anthem of the United States of America. Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote it after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

Set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular British drinking-song, it became well-known as an American patriotic song. It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and the White House (1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on 3 March 1931. Although the song has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today. Like the British national anthem "God Save the Queen," "The Star-Spangled Banner" is one of the few national anthems of the world without a country's name mentioned in the lyrics.

The Mexican anthem is awesome.

Mexicans, at the cry of battle
prepare your swords and bridle;
and let the earth tremble at its center
at the roar of the cannon.

Oh fatherland
Your forehead shall be girded with olive garlands,
by the divine archangel of peace
For in heaven your eternal destiny
has been written by the hand of God.

But should a foreign enemy dale to
profane your land with his sole,
Think, beloved fatherland, that heaven
gave you a soldier in each son.

War, war without truce against who would attempt
to blemish the honor of the fatherland!
War, war! The patriotic banners
drench in waves
of blood.

War, war! On the mount, in the valley
The terrifying thunder of the cannon

And the echoes nobly
resound to the cries of
Union!
Liberty!

Fatherland, before your children

Become unarmed
Beneath the yoke their necks in sway,
And your countryside be watered with blood,
On blood their
feet trample.

And may your temples, palaces and towers
crumble in horrid
crash,
and ruins remain
saying:
The fatherland was made of one thousand heroes.

Fatherland, fatherland, your children swear
to exhale their breath in your cause,
If the bugle in its belligerent tone
should call upon them to struggle with bravery.

For you the olive garlands!

For them a memory of glory!

For you a laurel of victory!

For them a tomb of honor!

The British should like the tune...



Thanks Wikipedia.

Indeed it is!

Highly underated anthem by many

God, how stupid of me!



The European Union's official anthem, OF COURSE!


It's Beethoven's 9th Symphony!


I knew it would be something German-related