{"id":2012,"date":"2025-11-27T04:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T04:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:28:40","slug":"immigration-anthem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/immigration-anthem\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Anthem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’ve written a set of alternate lyrics to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” that the people of this country need to be hearing and singing. I’m copyrighting them with the Creative Commons BY-ND license, which means that anyone is free to distribute them and perform them, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit me as the author and don’t modify them.<\/p>\n

Here they are. You can download a PDF score here<\/a>. (Only the lyrics in the score fall under the CC license. You can modify or replace the public domain musical setting as you wish.)<\/p>\n

1.<\/p>\n

Our country born in harm,
\nIn plunder by the strong,
\nYet strength my stake
\nOn weary travelers lost,
\nThe homeless, tempest tossed,
\nThat oceans of misfortune cross
\nA home to make.<\/p>\n

2.<\/p>\n

Keep, ancient lands, your few,
\nYour pride in lineage true
\nOf warring tribes.
\nGive us your tired, your poor,
\nYour masses yearning for
\nThe light we shine from out the door
\nWe open wide.<\/p>\n

3.<\/p>\n

Not like the realms of old
\nThat greatness bought with gold
\nOr war’s dear toll,
\nBut a new liberty,
\nBorn of equality:
\nA thousand tongues in harmony
\nTo sing the whole.<\/p>\n

4.<\/p>\n

So may we ever be,
\nIn our diversity,
\nTrue freedom’s shore:
\nA land of pilgrims still,
\nA light upon a hill,
\nThe hope of ages to fulfill
\nForevermore.<\/p>\n

Here it is paired with a public domain setting I found online<\/a>, but performers can feel free to find or create their own arrangements.<\/p>\n

I love to create a video of an appropriately diverse virtual choir singing this. If you’d like to help with that in any way (as a singer, video editor, whatever), please contact me<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written a set of alternate lyrics to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” that the people of this country need to be hearing and singing. I’m copyrighting them with the Creative Commons BY-ND license, which means that anyone is free to distribute them and perform them, even for commercial purposes,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/anthem-scaled.png?fit=1978%2C2560&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2031,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}