Wow, Dougie, that's beautiful, but you're right: I can't see that one being sung at sporting events! Stirs the heart in an entirely different way than the nationalistic songs, eh?

That's one of the objections I have to "America the Beautiful", often proposed as a replacement for the US's "The Star-Spangled Banner". The other objections are: (a) to the references to Judeo-Christian ideology ("God shed his grace on thee", "God mend thine every flaw" etc.); and (b) the idealization of the "pilgrims" beating "a thoroughfare of freedom... across the wilderness" (resulting, unfortunately, in the end of freedom for Native American tribes). This leftover-Manifest-Destiny attitude is one that I also see in "This Land is Your Land": Im afraid that too many people interpret "This land was made for you and me" to mean that it wasn't made for them (whichever ethnic or religious group the singer may consider them to be).

So I find "America the Beautiful" and "This Land is Your Land" to be even less politcally correct than "The Star-Spangled Banner" is said to be.

Sharon