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National anthem in other languages? Heard this before

President Bush, Congress and anyone else upset over the Spanish translation of the national anthem might be interested to know that the U.S. government gave its blessing to a different version 87 years ago.

That translation of "The Star-Spangled Banner," prepared by the Bureau of Education in 1919, has been available on the Library of Congress Web site for two years without so much as a sniff of disapproval.

Besides Spanish, the library has vintage translations in Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Armenian, among others. A little Googling will turn up versions in Samoan and Yiddish, too.

"What's sort of surprising for us here who've lived with 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is that everyone has their shorts in a bunch about it," said Loras Schissel, a musicologist at the Library of Congress. "It's old news."

Until last week, that is, when some Latino pop stars released a Spanish version with somewhat different lyrics ("The time has come to break the chains") called "Nuestro Himno," or "Our Anthem."

It landed in the middle of a heated debate over immigration. The song's producer and singers hoped to fire up the immigrant community. To critics, they might as well have torched a flag on the Capitol steps.

Musically speaking, the reaction was fortissimo. Once Spanish-language radio aired the song, talk radio, blogs and cable, along with members of Congress, reacted with outrage.

In contrast, the 1919 government-sponsored Spanish translation evoked a collective yawn, if anyone was paying attention.

"National airs and anthems were popular music at the time," Schissel said. "You bought them on 78 [rpm] records, and people sang them around the piano."