Alternative Anthems

Jesse Walker | July 4, 2009

I'll skip the usual complaints about "The Star Spangled Banner" and jump right to the eternally popular question: If Francis Scott Key's martial ballad were deposed as the national theme song, what would you want to replace it? Enter your suggestions in the comment thread below. You can call for as many replacements as you want -- the nation survived for more than a century without a single, centralized flag design, and on the road back to that happy day of vexillological competition we might as well bring a similar system to anthems. It's a diverse and sprawling country, and there's room for more than one song on the soundtrack.

I'll open the nominations with this old favorite from Johnny Cash: