As I am a fourth-generation Chicano, when I first read about “Nuestro Himno” and went through its Spanish lyrics, my interest was piqued, and I thought Finally—something distinctly American under which the various Latino sub-cultures in this nation can unite. The lyrics, while only mildly poetic, are nonetheless impactful and clean enough, considering they are poetically approximated from the English.

Now I’ve heard the actual recording. And I hate it, though this has nothing to do with it being in Spanish or adopted by Spanish-language radio stations. Gone is the majesty of the traditional interpretation. No rich harmonies or blasts of brass or rap of determined percussion. The song is a frothy showcase of layer on layer of indulgent improvisational vocal melismas, with the grand and simple melody only lightly sketched. The castanets and dribbles of guitar would make it a lullaby if it weren’t for the synthesized and MIDI-triggered flailings of the ending.

Imagine instead a more traditional version of the song sung acappella by scores of Latino Americans—our proud, broad vowels ringing through the streets of Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. Only then—when we sound the anthem from our own mouths—can this truly be “Nuestro Himno.”

The power of “The Star Spangled Banner” is almost entirely musical, afterall. For those Americans who even know the English lyrics, the only words in the main verse that are pertinent to the principles of our nation are in the last stanza (“… the land of the free and the home of the brave.”). The rest is dedicated to a symbol that (let’s not pretend here) isn’t nearly as sacrosanct as it was two hundred years ago. No, it is the rhythmic impulse and the stepwise chord movement—open, rugged and natural as the American landscape—that make our national anthem work. The American spirit is in the music, and that spirit was not abandoned even by Hendrix’s version, the which contained (musically speaking) a measure of the struggle and freedom to which the musician Pitbull speaks in the Houston Chronicle article.

When that spirit and those rhythms and harmonies are abandoned for the banalities of Fruity Loops-produced pop, what is left is something altogether un-American—something that does not endure and does not take part in the divine dialogue with the Universal under which these States were federated.

For those of you who can read music (or at least get the general idea), you can click here view an old sheet music printing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a mostly unadorned arrangement. It only makes sense that the music should be this severe; the tune of our anthem was originally a drinking song. If you’ve ever done karaoke drunk before, you’ll already know: the fewer notes, the better.