Some time ago, someone sent me a link to a national anthems site, and I snagged a few of them. Some thoughts...

The Belgian national anthem, sorry to all you Belgians out there, sounds like perfect music for a news forecast.. you know, the kind where they play a few bars in the foreground, and then soften it so people can talk over it. Still, at least theirs is better than the American national anthem, which is pretty lame. The Mexican national anthem, or at least the version there, is actually pretty irritating. Their rendition of the Japanese national anthem is pretty good, and their rendition of Hatikvah, the Israeli anthem is hauntingly memorable. The Mongolian national anthem, which I had (probably) never heard before, is also pretty, inspiring imagery of a survey of a nature preserve. Their russian national anthem rendition is inferior to that produced by the red army choir, so I didn't keep that. I found the Palestinian national anthem elsewhere, and it's totally lame, basically a bunch of people shouting. North Korea and China have beautiful anthems (although I've heard better renditions elsewhere of the Chinese national anthem). The Australian national anthem was irritatingly overlaid with some text, but it had a kind of Gaelic sound to it... with a bit of googling, I found the reason -- the Australian national anthem was written by a Scotsman from Glasgow. Their rendition of "God Save the Queen" was pretty poor, and I don't like the south korean national anthem too much. Their rendition of the German national anthem is pretty poor, but the Vatican national anthem, which I had not heard before, is actually pretty nice.. it has kind of a measured, intellectual feel to it. Cuba's national anthem had kind of a circus feel to it...

Sometimes, conversations happen that simply make one's week. W00t! And then, it's time to close one's eyes.