12/4/2009
John "underpaid civil servant" F. says:
@TJ - Many Americans would agree with you on their national anthem. It is a hard to sing drinking song with originally a set of anacreontic lyrics that was adapted to a bathetic war poem.
Canada's tune is simple and easy but is marred a bit by an extra repetition of a line. Also, the French words, albeit a bit too religious, work better than the English.
Of the other national anthems I know at least the tunes for (UK, France, Germany, Finland, and Israel), all are better than the US and Germany's and Finland's both have the virtue of having tunes written by great composers, Haydn and Sibelius, respectively. Plus "God Save the Queen" is such an useable little tune that even Beethoven wrote variations on it.
Also concur with you on Oprah.