Jose, Can You See?

Tomorrow -- May 1st, May Day -- may or may not be a memorable day in history. There are plans for a general strike among legal and illegal immigrants. The point is to show the contributions that are being made to our economy.

As part of this whole conroversy, a new Spanish language version of "The Star Spangled Banner" (called "Nuestro Himno" -- "Our Anthem") has been recorded. Read about it here, in an account from The London Times. The translation is not literal, and that, among others things, has some people irked.

Count a blogger who's calling himself "The American Kernel" among the irked.

Record label Urban Box Office is using the illegal immigration debate both for music (I use the term loosely) profiteering and as a means to insult Americans. I find their bilingual recording of my national anthem to be offensive on so many levels and would like to suggest that, rather than expropriate America's song, there's another tune that more closely captures what the invasion of illegal aliens means to America: "La Cucaracha."

Be sure to clink on the link. If you click on the picture of the cockroaches decorated as Mexican flags -- (what? That strikes you as racist?!) -- you can hear "Nuestro Himno".

Other people are not as offended.

At least 389 versions have been recorded, according to Allmusic.com, a quick reference used by musicologists to get a sense of what's on the market. Now that Hendrix's "Banner" has mellowed into classic rock, it's hard to imagine that once some considered it disrespectful. The other recordings embrace a vast musical universe: from Duke Ellington to Dolly Parton to Tiny Tim. But musicologists cannot name another foreign-language version.

"America is a pluralistic society, but the anthem is a way that we can express our unity. If that's done in a different language, that doesn't seem to me personally to be a bad thing," said Michael Blakeslee, deputy executive director of the National Association for Music Education, which is leading a National Anthem Project to highlight the song and the school bands that play it in every style, from mariachi to steel drum.

"I assume the intent is one of making a statement about 'we are a part of this nation,' and those are wonderful sentiments and a noble intent," said Dan Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

And remember, the "Banner" itself is a pastiche -- a poem set to an old Englsih drinking song.

Since its origins as the melody to an English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," circa 1780, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has had a long, strange trip. Key wrote the poem after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. It became the national anthem in 1931.

Here are the translated lyrics from the first verse. (Does anybody know the second and third verses in English?)

"The Star-Spangled Banner"
(First verse)
O, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

"Our Anthem"
(Translated from Spanish)
Verse 1
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail as night falls?
Its stars and stripes floated yesterday
In the fierce combat, the sign of victory
The flame of battle, in step with liberty.
Throughout the night it was said, "It is being defended."
Chorus:
Oh, say! Does it still show its beautiful stars
Over the land of the free, the sacred flag?
Verse 2
Its stars and stripes, liberty, we are the same.
We're brothers, it's our anthem.
In the fierce combat, the sign of victory,
The flame of battle, in step with liberty.
Throughout the night it was said, "It is being defended."
Chorus:
"Oh, say! Does it still show its beautiful stars?
Over the land of the free, the sacred flag?"

President Bush, although he speaks passable Spanish himself, has a Mexican-American Attorney General, and even a Mexican-American nephew, is against this version of our national anthem.

“One of the important things here is that we not lose our national soul,” the President said at a press briefing.

“I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”