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Try here if you don't believe me. They're so, so bad. New York, with so many to choose from, instead chose this (not for the faint of heart). Likewise Texas.
Kansas, Florida, Maryland and Virginia can all compete for racial offensiveness (or really in Maryland's case Civil War irredentism; but have no fear, Illinois is still ready to kick Southern booty). Missouri offers possibly redeemable dialect. (Z. also suggests that the mention of the Red River in "Home on the Range" is a structural flaw, given that the Red River is in Texas and not Kansas.) Like Kansas, Colorado celebrates genocide and, bonus!, species extinction. On the other extreme, Hawai'i celebrates the king under whose sovereignty it no longer is, New Mexico has Spanglish, and Montana welcomes Indians back.
We've got several spelling lessons, odes to dead women, state capitols, phosphate mines, a conviction that all of our children are above average, and a curious resort to thys, thees and thous, as if hoping we'll think these have been around since the days of the King James Bible, as well as o'ers and ne'ers, flow'rs, tho's, and, perhaps most odd, "builded".
Arizona seems somewhat confused about the deity invoked, or might be nicely pluralistic; it's hard to tell. North Carolina sneers at the witlings who defame her. (Which reminds me of the old punchline, "gee, we don't have any songs about you.") Ohio seems to be the songwriter's lover.
Connecticut, at least, has a sense of humor, if not a state-specific song. Louisiana pulls a trick -- who'd ever have thought that the last few verses of "You Are My Sunshine" are about that state? Who'd have wanted to think that? Delaware's is overwrought, but who'd notice amidst all the others? Georgia has one you actually might know, sappy as it is.
Perhaps I should make a special exception for Rodgers & Hammerstein, but -- "pertaters"? Have some dignity, states! In that light, I might have to nominate Pennsylvania's as dignified, possibly too much so. Vermont's actually moved me, and Washington's almost did, though it's spoiled for me by comparison to Washington, DC, which doesn't have a song of its own any more than it has Senators and Representatives of its own. Ahem; .
With those few exceptions, if the flaw's not with the song, it's in the selection. Tennessee has the hilarious Rocky Top, but suffers from having not one, not two, but six different state songs, which is cheating. Wisconsin's song is near and dear to my heart, as I spent a big chunk of my childhood there, but get this: it was written for Minnesota and only had its name changed at the last minute. "On, Minnesota!" That's just not right.
Kansas, Florida, Maryland and Virginia can all compete for racial offensiveness (or really in Maryland's case Civil War irredentism; but have no fear, Illinois is still ready to kick Southern booty). Missouri offers possibly redeemable dialect. (Z. also suggests that the mention of the Red River in "Home on the Range" is a structural flaw, given that the Red River is in Texas and not Kansas.) Like Kansas, Colorado celebrates genocide and, bonus!, species extinction. On the other extreme, Hawai'i celebrates the king under whose sovereignty it no longer is, New Mexico has Spanglish, and Montana welcomes Indians back.
We've got several spelling lessons, odes to dead women, state capitols, phosphate mines, a conviction that all of our children are above average, and a curious resort to thys, thees and thous, as if hoping we'll think these have been around since the days of the King James Bible, as well as o'ers and ne'ers, flow'rs, tho's, and, perhaps most odd, "builded".
Arizona seems somewhat confused about the deity invoked, or might be nicely pluralistic; it's hard to tell. North Carolina sneers at the witlings who defame her. (Which reminds me of the old punchline, "gee, we don't have any songs about you.") Ohio seems to be the songwriter's lover.
Connecticut, at least, has a sense of humor, if not a state-specific song. Louisiana pulls a trick -- who'd ever have thought that the last few verses of "You Are My Sunshine" are about that state? Who'd have wanted to think that? Delaware's is overwrought, but who'd notice amidst all the others? Georgia has one you actually might know, sappy as it is.
Perhaps I should make a special exception for Rodgers & Hammerstein, but -- "pertaters"? Have some dignity, states! In that light, I might have to nominate Pennsylvania's as dignified, possibly too much so. Vermont's actually moved me, and Washington's almost did, though it's spoiled for me by comparison to Washington, DC, which doesn't have a song of its own any more than it has Senators and Representatives of its own. Ahem; .
With those few exceptions, if the flaw's not with the song, it's in the selection. Tennessee has the hilarious Rocky Top, but suffers from having not one, not two, but six different state songs, which is cheating. Wisconsin's song is near and dear to my heart, as I spent a big chunk of my childhood there, but get this: it was written for Minnesota and only had its name changed at the last minute. "On, Minnesota!" That's just not right.
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Heh, just kidding. Seriously though, everybody here basically treats "Back Home Again..." as our state song- they sing it at the baseball games, and the Indy 500, after the National Anthem, instead of our official state song.
This officially concludes the "Stuff RivkaT didn't really wanna know" portion of the show. This entry is a trip, "On, Minnesota!" indeed!
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I support rejecting a lame state song, just as I think we ought to reject our unsingable, wartorn national anthem. I want "America the Beautiful" to be the national anthem. I love the extra verses: O beautiful for pilgrim feet/Whose stern impassioned stress/A thoroughfare for freedom beat/Across the wilderness/America! America!/God mend thine every flaw,/Confirm thy soul in self-control,/
Thy liberty in law!
Ahem.