IJ study archive

Marathe & Steeply: the anthems neither can finish — "Oh Say, Land of the Free…"

quote

Oh Say, Land of the Free.

Context

The debate's running joke and its quiet despair: Steeply mock-croons "Ohh… Canada…" and Marathe answers by humming "Oh Say, Land of the Free" — "all over the map in terms of key" — two men in a covert war who can each only half-remember the other side's anthem. National feeling reduced to a botched bar of song, patriotism as something you gesture at rather than sing.

In anthology