[81alum]

Yeah, but have you ever seen Columbia play football??

Hah!  No, actually, but I was curious after Nottingham went there.  Seems it didn't work out for him.

Columbia's anthem is "Stand Columbia."  A completely different song :)  The word "Columbia" was a poetic synonym for the United States in our first century--hence the name of our national district.

A couple of points about our first anthem.  It quotes Shakespeare (the "band of brothers" line.)  It was composed and performed in the time of our founding--embraced by John Adams and George Washington.  Gradually people forgot the meaning of "Columbia" though and the anthem came into competition with newer songs.  "The Star Spangled Banner" really got its start being played at early baseball games, so you could say we have that anthem because of sports.  Hail Columbia was considered too ceremonial for a sporting event--it even would have been considered vaguely inappropriate or disrespectful to play it there, so over time it faded in popularity and the Star Spangled Banner grew in popularity.

Given that we have already ditched one anthem for another, we can only hope that we keep going until we get one that everyone likes and can actually sing.

[81alum]

Yeah, but have you ever seen Columbia play football??

Hah!  No, actually, but I was curious after Nottingham went there.  Seems it didn't work out for him.

Columbia's anthem is "Stand Columbia."  A completely different song :)  The word "Columbia" was a poetic synonym for the United States in our first century--hence the name of our national district.

A couple of points about our first anthem.  It quotes Shakespeare (the "band of brothers" line.)  It was composed and performed in the time of our founding--embraced by John Adams and George Washington.  Gradually people forgot the meaning of "Columbia" though and the anthem came into competition with newer songs.  "The Star Spangled Banner" really got its start being played at early baseball games, so you could say we have that anthem because of sports.  Hail Columbia was considered too ceremonial for a sporting event--it even would have been considered vaguely inappropriate or disrespectful to play it there, so over time it faded in popularity and the Star Spangled Banner grew in popularity.

Given that we have already ditched one anthem for another, we can only hope that we keep going until we get one that everyone likes and can actually sing.