Let's Replace the National Anthem

And not with "My Country 'Tis of Thee"

It’s Independence Day. If you’re reading this, you’re in the mood for some inessential reading. I’m in the mood to take my mind off the demise of the constitutional order. So let’s get to the holiday diversion.

We can do better than the “Star-Spangled Banner.” As a piece of agit-prop, it needs work. It’s slow, it’s hard to sing, and it’s about a war nobody remembers anymore (except Canadians). Yes, the song has seen us through some good times (and some bad ones). Yet just watch perhaps the best use of perhaps the best national anthem—“The Marseillaise” in Casablanca:

Every time I watch this scene, I want to fight for France. For France!

It’s impossible to imagine this happening with the “Star-Spangled Banner.” For one thing, nobody would be in tune. For another, even though thematically it would be in keeping with the scene, lyrically it would not: the song is about watching someone else fight, not about forming battalions with the other children of the fatherland.

The U.S. has long faced problems in the anthem field. I’m sad to report that you can imagine a version (a very particular version) of that scene with the first verse and chorus of the Soviet anthem (1977 ed.):

This is not perfect. It is perhaps a bit slow. It goes on a little long past the chorus—but then again, I can name some other anthems that go on too long:

(Seriously, you should listen to the next verse(s). Full disclosure: I found the experience manifestly unsettling, like an uncanny valley of audio patriotism, and I could not get more than two-thirds of the way through even the second verse.)

Still, the Soviet anthem feels like an anthem. You are being called to do something. It is steady because you are part of a Big Red Machine. And damn if starting off an anthem with “Soyuz” — “United”—isn’t an ingredient for a banger.

I’m not going to say that listening to the Soviet anthem makes me want to overthrow capitalism, but it does at least make me want to furrow my brow at Bill Gates.

America: we can do better. We should do better. We need a national anthem that rallies us while still conveying our national character. We need an anthem exactly as good as the American people.

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Hack columnists dredging up this theme will usually circle back to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, “America, The Beautiful”, or even “God Bless America”. I’m just going to stipulate that these have the same problems as “The Star-Spangled Banner” while invoking none of the martial spirit. And although there is a potential upside to trolling the Brits by using the melody of “God Save the King” as our anthem, there’s also the danger that they might think they’re winning all the gold medals at the Olympics.

Others have suggested “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, which I happen to like but which would set up so many fights about the religious content that it hardly seems worth it. A more radical solution would be something like “This Land is Your Land”, which has nice aspirational qualities (and which I once taught to a group of third graders in Shanghai), but which seems better suited to a smaller, more communal, folk-music kind of a country. Maybe Wales can have it after independence.

What do we want, then? It doesn’t have to be martial, but it should be proud. It should absolutely not be in good taste—this is an anthem for the United States of America, damnit. It should be about what the United States is now(ish). And, most of all, it should have a really awesome couple of measures you can imagine belting out at a ball game after a couple of $14.99 Bud Light Limes.¹

(To be sure, there’s the slight issue that you also need a song that can work when you are, for instance, inaugurating a president or mourning the honored dead. My solution is simple: keep the “Banner” for those situations, not least because it’s already appropriately paced for that duty.)

“Living in America”

Super highways, coast to coast
Easy to get anywhere
On the transcontinental overload
Just slide behind the wheel
How does it feel

When there's no destination that's too far?
And somewhere on the way you might find out who you are, woo

Living in America (ow)
Eye to eye, station to station
Living in America
Hand in hand, across the nation
Living in America
Got to have a celebration

This song has everything. It’s driver-centric. It’s existential. It has some weird old-timey jargon nobody understands (“station to station”?), just like the “Banner”. It has lines that everyone can sing. And it ends on a celebratory note. Just hear in your mind the announcer asking fans at the stadium to get down for the national anthem.

“America”

Home
To a new and a shiny place
Make our bed and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm
Everywhere around the world

They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America
Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

Don’t worry—nobody remembers this was the Dukakis ‘88 theme. What people will recognize is that this song is corny, drippingly patriotic, utterly aspirational, and impossibly messianic. It’s an overstuffed, overproduced mess that you can still sing along with. America, baby!

Party in the U.S.A.

Feel like hoppin' on a flight (on a flight)
Back to my hometown tonight (town tonight)
Something stops me every time (every time)
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright

So I put my hands up
They're playin' my song, the butterflies fly away
I'm noddin' my head like, yeah (noddin' my head)
Movin' my hips like, yeah (ooh, yeah)
I got my hands up, they're playin' my song
They know I'm gonna be okay (gonna be okay)
Yeah, it's a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it's a party in the U.S.A.

Yes, it’s silly. Yes, in 80 years, nobody will know who “Britney” or “Jay-Z” is. But think about it: It’s the Olympics in a few weeks, in Paris. Imagine President Macron having to listen to “It’s a party in the USA!” twenty or thirty times. It’s a beautiful image.

Even better: the 2028 Olympics will be in Los Angeles. The crowd will go wild every time an American gold medalist takes the stand to the lines “I hopped off the plane at LAX”.

Picture a high school football game with people of all races and ages and genders movin’ their hips like yeah. Think of a presidential inauguration—of the National Mall full of people throwing up their hands because they’re playin’ our song. Close your eyes and feel the vibes of a United States dedicated to parties.

Now—imagine Samuel Alito having to listen to this. A lot.

America, this is it. This is your song.

1. Off-topic, but this entire newsletter is off-topic: BLL is not half as bad as you think it is, and if you have it in the right context—on a very hot day when the beer is ice-cold—it is actually remarkably drinkable. (Bud Light Lime: the official beer of global warming.) Not everything has to be a Russian Imperial Stout: sometimes (not often) you want a flavored adjunct lager that’s pretty much a session beer already.