I really don't get what people don't like about The Star-Spangled Banner. It's a perfectly good anthem.
It's a drinking song for British gentry.
Well damn, even the Brits sometimes get things right. It's a good melody.
And the lyrics make up for it by being based on the last war y'all fought with Britain, and they're fairly poignant in terms of showing resilience in the fact of adversity. I think it's an underrated anthem, honestly.
A lot of our best national songs are parodies of old British songs. "Our Country Tis of Thee" is a parody of "God Save the King", which hits it home with its last line "Great God our King." And the "land of the noble free" line gives me the chills every time.
In the case of Yankee Doodle, we didn't even really bother with changing the lyrics. We just flung it right back at 'em.
On a side note, it's too bad that the one line in the third stanza of our Anthem is so out of step with today's political environment, because I wish singing all four verses would become the norm. When we just sing the first stanza, we answer a question that the second stanza answers - but we don't sing.
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