BY THE DAWNZER LEE LIGHT: Yes, America's focusing on the truly important issues, like the fact that not enough people know the lyrics to the National Anthem. I'll freely admit that I wasn't as familiar with verses 2 through 5 of the Anthem (the whole of which is here), with such Sondheimian wordplay and rhymes as reposes/discloses and confusion/pollution, but haven't these people been to a baseball game? Also, if you think singing the Anthem is hard, you should take a look at the original lyrics to the tune, which contain tongue-twisting lines like "To Anacreon in Heaven, where he sat in full glee," and "Apollo rose up and said 'Prithee never quarrel.'"
Of course, the Anthem, with all its flaws, remains superior to Maryland's state song (enacted in 1939), featuring such lovely moments as "The despot's heel is on thy shore!," "Huzzah! She spurns the Northern scum!," and other pro-South Civil War sentiments.
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