Jose, can you see?

(1)

George W. Bush, who can't see any disasters in his procedures in Iraq, has quickly seen a disaster-in-the-making at a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," the American national anthem.

I found a link to the audio recording via the San Jose Mercury News -- ironically, with a newspaper that draws only half of its name from the English language. Artistically, it sounds "icky" to MeTheSheeple, but what does he know. His major phrases in Spanish are "Dois quesadillas, por favor" and "Tu madre tiene un pene pequeno."

To get slightly back on track, "The Star-Spangled Banner" seems to be a highly visible scene of the divide in America over immigration and, well, immigrants. The Spanish-singing performers even changed the lyrics in some places, adding, for example, "we are equals, we are brothers, it's our anthem."

What's ironic about this whole thing -- the taking of "The Star-Spangled Banner" away from its American roots -- is it doesn't have American roots. The song -- written during a British attack on those uppity "American" colonialists -- was actually just Francis Scott Key's words drafted to a British song -- and a British drinking song at that. One of the few things that could be said is the original lyrics were as challenging to sing as the actual melody. The melody we made worse by changing the key.

Wikipedia notes that the song became the national anthem only in 1931, some 70 years after it was translated into German. (Were these the guys that "dat fite mit Siegel" in the Civil War?) Wikipedia also notes that Jewish immigrants translated it into Yiddish, while Louisiana's Acadians translated it into French. American Somoans translated it this year.

Clearly, this idea of a purebred version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is absolute malarkey. That isn't to say that the Spanish-language singers are absolutely right, or the new lyrics are perfect. But, as with much of much of what revolves around the long history of this song, everything's sort of a compromise. And so, I propose:

And besides I'll instruct you,
Like me, to intwine
The Myrtle of Venus
With Bacchus's Vine." *

Or we can stick with the American version, even though most people only know -- and some poorly -- just 25 percent of it.

O thus be it ever when free man shall stand
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'r and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

But if all that's too much, I say we should all learn a different song: When some Americans, fighting to preserve the very nation itself, couldn't speak English worth a flip. The ensuing struggle claimed more casualties than the rest of America's wars combined. This song, then, may say more about America's heritage:

Ven I comes from de Deutch Countree,
I vorks somedimes at baking;
Den I keeps a lager bier saloon,
Und den I goes shoemaking;
But now I was a sojer been
To save de Yankee Eagle;
To Schlauch dem tam Secession volks,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

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(1) Title for blog post ... inspired ... by http://noapostrophe.blogspot.com/