As far as the Digital Tradition goes, Dicho, there won't be any sanitizing. Dick Greenhaus has made that clear. If you want "politically correct" lyrics, you'll have to go to Rise Up Singing. Some people object to the posting of IRA and other songs here at Mudcat, and I think they miss the point. The Mudcat Forum was established for the collection of lyrics for the Digital Tradition. It has grown far beyond that, but that original purpose has not been abandoned. Songs tell us a lot about history, and it's important that we don't filter our parts of history that we consider objectionable.

I can only suppose why "My Country Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful" aren't in the Digital Tradition. Perhaps they're too common, too available from other sources. As people post them, I've been harvesting them submitting them to Dick Greenhaus for inclusion in the Digital Tradition. However, I'm trying to ensure that the songs I harvest have songwriter information, publication dates, background information, and all the original verses. It also helps to have the tune, although I'm not sure how necessary this is for common songs. I don't know whether Dick will include them in the DT - but he probably will. Whatever the case, it's good to have them posted here in the forum, because then they're immediately available and searchable for all of us.

But to get back to the question of mentioning God in patriotic songs - Most American patriotic songs that I know of, make mention of God. Some, like "America the Beautiful" and "My Country Tis of Thee," portray a God that fits my image of God, a wise, loving deity. Other US patriotic songs, mostly newer ones that tend to come from Country music, make me cringe a bit - they portray a God who makes us Americans powerful and self-righteous. They portray a God I can't believe in, and they also portray an all-powerful United States I can't believe in or support.

WYSIWYG makes a good point in here analogy with the Creed. There's a line that says "for us men and for our salvation..." I can't quite handle that, so I say, "for us [pause] and for our salvation" - glossing over something I find needlessly sexist. I hope nonbelievers can do the same with patriotic songs. Many of these songs have been with us for generations and are part of our history and culture. I hope we're able to maintain our own beliefs (or unbelief), and yet sing together.

-Joe Offer-