16 thoughts on “The Rest Of The Story”

  2. Really, “This Land is Your Land” is considered a runner up to the “Star Spangled Banner”? I always thought “America The Beautiful” was the one the libs wanted as a replacement.

  3. I was reading the wikipedia page you linked to and my favorite variation remains from a Dave Barry book:

    This land is my land, this land is your land.
    It looks like one of us,
    Has forged a deed to this land.
    It may miss the original point, but it’s always stuck with me.

  4. What national anthem wouldn’t be complete without a verse detailing bayonet wounds?

  5. “This land is my land/
    “This land’s not your land/
    “‘Cause I’ve a shotgun/
    “And you ain’t got none. . . ”

    (Forget where that came from but I read it a long time ago.)

  6. “Some day.” Uncle Frank told his nephew Barry, “when you’re president of the United States and have desroyed capitalism and sent the reactionaries to the re-education camps, you can replace ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ with the much more progressive national anthem by Comrade Guthrie.”

    “Gol-lee!” the impressionable Kenyan lad exclaimed. “That’ll be cool, won’t it? Maybe Comrade Seeger can sing it at my sixth inaugural!”

  7. The actual third and fourth verses aren’t that far off.

    And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
    That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
    A home and a country should leave us no more!
    Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
    No refuge could save the hireling and slave
    From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
    And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
    O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

    O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
    Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
    Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
    Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
    Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
    And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
    And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
    O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave![

    Then there is the Civil War era verses.

    When our land is illumined with liberty’s smile,
    If a foe from within strikes a blow at her glory,
    Down, down with the traitor that tries to defile
    The flag of the stars, and the page of her story!
    By the millions unchained,
    Who their birthright have gained
    We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained;
    And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
    While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

  9. Jonathon: That’s from “Dave Barry Slept Here”, isn’t it? I’ve always preferred his version.*

    *A dwarf goat?

  10. Bilwick1, that’s the one I learned in the schoolyard. It’s still the version that comes most easily to mind.

  13. I like Alice’s Restaurant, oh, wait, you meant that other Guthrie dude, never mind.

  14. “My nomination would be the theme song from “Team America”

    LoL; and whoever sings it and sporting event has to do so through a bullhorn.

  15. Peronally, I think that the anthem that would be the most fitting for this administration would be the Internationale.

  16. Obama’s theme song is “The Trees” by Rush:

    So the maples formed a union
    And demanded equal rights.
    “The oaks are just too greedy;
    We will make them give us light.”
    Now there’s no more oak oppression,
    For they passed a noble law,
    And the trees are all kept equal
    By hatchet, axe, and saw.

    I got Israel’s national anthem, right here. Kinda works for the Tea Parties, too.

    Well I know what’s right
    I got just one life
    In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
    But I’ll stand my ground
    And I won’t back down

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