I was scrolling down to the bottom of this to add my two cents and I see other titles have arisen so I'm not drifting completely off topic. I remember having more than one conversation about changing the national anthem with my mom, and she always wanted America, the Beautiful, mostly because it was easier to sing.

On the Wind Band Literature web site it discusses the poem's author Katherine Lee Bates in every way but saying the word lesbian as a professor of English literature at Wellesley College and the composer of the tune as Samuel Augustus Ward, a church organist from New Jersey.

I agree with my mother, the song is easier to sing, I'm glad a song written by a lesbian woman has always gotten such attention, but the two things working against it are the mentioned elements of god and pilgrims. I'm not fond of either of them. The "alabaster cities gleam" reminds me of the description Sinclair Lewis gave of the city of Zenith in the novel Babbitt. But whatever.

Except for Och's incomplete list of states (does that mean someone else is going to write more lyrics? The debate will NEVER end in that case!) his song should be in the running.