Zeno's Bar & Grill

What’s all the ruckus about Nuestro Himno, the national anthem in Spanish? The Spanish version is largely a respectful tribute to the original song (click here for lyrics), but a lot of the kneejerk responses to it have been just...silly.

First of all, to those people who say there’s no precedent for a Spanish version of the anthem…I say phooey. One article I read actually quoted someone as saying they couldn’t imagine the Marseillaise sung in English. Well, hello, there actually are several English translations of the Marseillaise. And in fact, the first verse of Nuestro Himno is the same as a Spanish language translation commissioned way back in the early nineteen hundreds by the US government.

Here's another example of anthems in two languages: I recently read that in New Zealand before rugby games of the All Blacks, they sing the national anthem in both Maori and English (ummm, yes, my parents subscribed to New Zealand magazine for me, why do you ask?) Want to know what that sounds like? You could ask my mom to sing it for you. She actually learned the entire Maori version in preparation for their upcoming move. Or just listen to the MP3 file here.

And as for the pop music edge in Nuestro Himno, that’s nothing new either. In the seventies, Serge Gainsbourg released a reggae version of the Marseillaise that resulted in his getting death threats. Hmmm, that makes the recent response to Nuestro Himno look like a love-fest.

Seems like the real problem with Nuestro Himno is the second verse, which doesn't correspond to the words written by Francis Scott Key. And as for the remix version with lyrics condemning immigration laws--what were they thinking?

--Melanie