The Anthems podcast explores the powerful narrative behind Mexico's national anthem, "El Himno Nacional Mexicano." Patrick delves into the historical context of the anthem, linking it to Mexico's rich and tumultuous past, including the impact of the Spanish conquest and the struggle for independence. The episode reveals how the anthem reflects themes of national pride, sacrifice, and unity, with vivid imagery that evokes the bravery of Mexican citizens. Patrick also shares the stories of the poet Francisco Gonzalez Bocanegra and composer Jaime Nunó, who contributed to the anthem's creation amidst a backdrop of war and national identity. Through this exploration, listeners gain insight into how anthems serve as reflections of a nation's soul, embodying its struggles and aspirations.

A note on audio here: I recorded this in a 95 degree Fahrenheit booth with the AC off and it was a very sweaty hour of of my life. It's impossible to imagine sitting through that again despite my struggle with background appliance noise everywhere. Sorry it's a bit less this time.

Notes!

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20111209132114/http://www.nd.edu/~cneal/CRN_Papers/Schulte10_Sci_Chicxulub.pdf 
2. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/11/mexico-city-is-sinking-running-out-of-water-how-can-it-be-saved#:~:text=Mexico%20City%20is%20sinking%2C%20as,itself%20today%20in%20stunning%20ironies. 
3. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/14/647601623/mexico-city-keeps-sinking-as-its-water-supply-wastes-away 
4. https://www.salon.com/2007/08/30/upton/#:~:text=Interviewers%20handed%20people%20a%20blank,familiar%2C%22%20the%20survey%20found 
5. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Near_East/1WOPkmChaFsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Anatolia+cradle+of+civilization&pg=PP8&printsec=frontcover 
6. Mt. Pleasant, Jane (2006). "The science behind the Three Sisters mound system: An agronomic assessment of an indigenous agricultural system in the northeast". In Staller, John E.; Tykot, Robert H.; Benz, Bruce F. (eds.). Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize. Amsterdam: Academic Press. pp. 529–537. ISBN 978-0-1236-9364-8.
7. https://archive.org/details/olmecsamericasfi0000dieh/page/9/mode/1up 
8. https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/85636/gonzalo-guerrero 
9. Ida Altman, et al., The Early History of Greater Mexico, Pearson, 2003
10. https://archive.org/details/historyofmexico00burt 
11. https://mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/islandora/object/pintura%3A4293 
12. https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/41/2/206/160127/Early-Psychological-Warfare-in-the-Hidalgo-Revolt 
13. http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1020001404_C/1020001408_T5/1020001408.pdf 
14. https://www.natalietaylor.org/post/a-mexican-poet-forever-remembered 
15. https://dbpedia.org/page/Francisco_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Bocanegra 
16. https://web.archive.org/web/20201115214936/http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2017/1004070.html 
17. https://web.archive.org/web/20131020102135/http://rotonda.segob.gob.mx/work/models/Rotonda/Resource/contenidos/P40t.html# 
18. https://www.elsoldemexico.com.mx/cultura/jaime-nuno-un-heroe-de-la-historia-mexicana-a-110-anos-de-su-muerte-himno-nacional-mexico-guerra-de-independencia-5762305.html 
19. Canton, Cristian; Tovar, Raquel (2010). Jaume Nunó. Un santjoaní a Amèrica. Ajuntament de Sant Joan de les Abadesses and Casa Amèrica-Catalunya. ISBN 978-84-85736-54-6.
20. Cristian Canton and Raquel Tovar, Jaime Nunó. A San Juan resident in America . Joint edition of the City Council of San Juan de las Abadesas and Casa América-Cataluña, 2010. ISBN 978-84-85736-55-3
21. Cristian Canton. Jaume Nunó i Roca: his musical legacy From him. Co-edition of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts / National Council for Culture and the Arts and Mozaic Editions, 2012. ISMN 979-0-9002212-5-4
22. BELTRAN, Bernardino. History of the Mexican National Anthem and historical narratives by its authors Mr. Francisco González Bocanegra and Mr. Jaime Nunó. Mexico City: Graphic Workshops of the Nation (DAPP), 1939
23. Canton, Cristian; Tovar, Raquel (2010). Jaime Nuno. A San Juan native in America (1st edition). San Juan de las Abadesas Town Hall and Casa América-Cataluña.
24. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/042800/gimeno.html 
25. https://www.gob.mx/inafed/articulos/conmemoramos-que-hace-76-anos-se-emitio-el-decreto-por-el-que-se-establece-la-version-oficial-de-nuestro-himno-nacional 
26. https://web.archive.org/web/20041022114958/http://www.sre.gob.mx/mexico/general/himno.htm 
27. https://archive.today/20120628232955/http://www.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2004111601.html 

https://web.archive.org/web/20050316170805/http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=8552

Hello and welcome to the Anthems podcast. I'm Patrick, and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

That is just a bit more than the equatorial diameter of the earth, but what's less fun about that distance is sound. Takes about 11 hours to go that far, but it can only be heard that far if it is significantly louder than a nuclear explosion.

But I have not done the math for that because it's a sound so loud it sort of doesn't make sense in a physics kind of way. Plus, it's got me wandering right into relevant history, because a very loud thing happened there called the chicxulub impact.

The best estimates I can find for that put it at maybe 300 decibels. So about twice as loud as the eruption of Krakatau, which is the loudest thing that humans have ever measured at about 180 decibels.

And it was heard thousands of miles away. And of course, the Chicxulub impact crater is from the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. And that means that we're going to talk about Mexico.

There are two concurrent reasons that I have selected Mexico for this episode. One is that my daughter requested it because she said she was curious about the country.

Two is that very day she mentioned the request, I learned that Mexico was on track to elect one of two women as the president for the first time ever.

This is a country I did go into the reading for knowing a little bit more about than usual, at least in a very specific period of time, because I listened to Mike Duncan's Revolution podcast, and one of them was the mexican revolution. And that kind of matters in the story of a national anthem, particularly this one, although it doesn't always matter in an anthem story.

But I've learned a bunch getting ready to tell the story of El Himno Nacional Mexicano, literally the mexican national anthem. And I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. Despite it being one of the two countries bordering the one I live in.

I have not been to Mexico, but I have gotten pretty close to it. Back in the nineties, I went to visit some family in Scottsdale, Arizona, thereabouts, and we drove to San Diego to go to the zoo.

And if you were to drive from the zoo south to Tijuana so you could visit the, I don't know, the Agua Caliente tower.

You would drive nearly 20 miles and it takes about 45 minutes nowadays, so you would need to loop the two minute 32nd version of the anthem that you're about to hear and listen to it, I don't know, like 20 times.

Mexicanos agri.com Mastano Enemy Bronzo Blanda Swell Exalarin consolido para Mexicano agri Doa Prista my initial reaction is that I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the song. As usual, I have listened to dozens of versions of the anthem before settling on this.

I do appreciate the performer and the delivery and chose this because it is a well done version of the song. As you will learn, this is an anthem that is very mexican and it still gets to be a good song, even though this one isn't on my playlist.

More alarmingly though, while reading for this episode, I have learned that Mexico City is sinking.

Some places sink as much as 40 year in the city, which seems absolutely ridiculous to me because that's 15 inches and it has everything to do with how cities have chosen to manage their water resources. I will admit that earth's fresh water situation is one of the things that has me existentially worried.

But enough with that, because the existential portion of my show should be brief. Those are real problems, but I can do little other than encourage awareness.

I was worried for a moment before I looked that up. So if you know where the US is, just go south. One country. If you know where Canada is, go south too.

South America is probably easier to find, though, because it's quite large and it's its own continent. There is a little bit of Central America that connects South America, and we call that Panama.

If you head northeast about 130 miles, you'll be just into Mexico. I have come to learn the Olmec empire was the earliest civilization in the Americas and that it developed independently of any others.

This makes the Mexico Valley one of the eight cradles of civilization.

And what makes all eight of these places cradles of civilization is that they are all independently developed agriculture, except for probably one that was maybe initially a marine based civilization. But it gives me an excuse to talk about the three sisters.

This is a pretty brilliant method of cultivation that the indigenous people of the Americas use to feed their people you grow a center row of maize, which is corn. If you didn't know, then you add rows of climbing beans on either side, and sometime later, rows of squash. Outside of those.

The maize acts as a trellis for the beans. The beans act as a stabilizer for the maize.

They also fix nitrogen in the soil, and the broad leaves of the squash or pumpkins help with weeds, and they act as a natural compost when they start to die off. It's pretty cool stuff and something that I'm glad I know, because when I finally get around the gardening or when I have to, that's what I'll do.

Mexico was absolutely an interesting place, but it would make for too long of a show, and it already takes me too long to write these things.

Geronimo was rescued from his mayan captors and became a translator for the Spanish, and Gonzalo went full native initially. I'm sure he was not thrilled to be taken in as a slave, but he earned his freedom, and he became a respected warrior.

It's probably mostly because like, a third of the people that lived there died from smallpox, and the Spanish had gunpowder and mildly industrialized warfare. I don't mean to imply that the conquest of modern Mexico as New Spain happened super quickly because it did nothing.

The mayan empire was not defeated in totality for almost 180 years, which is absolutely crazy. The time span of colonialism blows my mind more and more.

New Spain became the largest and most important of the spanish colonies, and it was administered in one of the more racist methodologies I've read about, although I think the french system is more outrightly dehumanizing the descending order of rights Washington. Spanish descent and born in Spain, they were the only people that could be in government.

The creole people were of spanish descent, but born in Mexico, they were wealthy landowners and merchants with no government voice at all. The mestizos, or so called mixed race people, were barely third class. And then the indigenous people.

You can frame it however you want to frame it, but they were essentially an enslaved population. Despite the best efforts of their colonial masters. People did what people always do.

They ate meals together, they lived together, and after a while started to forget why they thought they were so different. And they formed a new common group, and they started hating somebody else, this time for good reasons, because the Spanish were not being great.

The fancy academic word for this is called syncretism, and it's this blending of culture and ideas in Mexico that led to things like tequila, mariachi music, and basically all of the deliciousness that is mexican cuisine. Of course, the cultural mix of spanish european culture and the many indigenous cultures didn't produce a distinct mexican culture overnight.

It happened over the course of about 300 years that new Spain was around, which is plenty. Well, long enough for a bunch of different people to land solidly on. I'm not sure what's next, but it doesn't include Bane anymore.

Then Miguel Hidalgo came along, and up front, you're gonna want to read more about this guy on your own, because he has a great story, and I'm barely touching it. He was a catholic priest. He mostly functioned as a secular businessman for the church.

He was a challenger of the king's authority, publicly doubted the veracity of immaculate Conception, which was kind of a big deal for a priest. In the 18th century, he fathered five children out of wedlock. During his vow of celibacy.

He dodged conviction from the actual inquisition and then got sent to Mexico, taught the indigenous people to grow forbidden crops, took up all of the causes of the criollos and mestizos and the indigenous people.

Then he gave an incredible speech called the cry of Dolores after his plot to rebel against the government was discovered, and he led an army of 90,000 fed up peasants to their defeat against the very well armed Spanish. Then he was betrayed and then was executed in a culmination to a series of events that inspired the mexican revolution.

Suffice to say, he is another guy on my list of wildly interesting historical figures to podcast about. He was not the person that really led to the collapse of New Spain, though, because that was our old pal Napoleon.

We're gonna keep running into this guy, you know, historical wrecking ball and such.

In fact, I think that revolutions are kinda always gonna happen, unless maybe someone manages to get fair government right. So probably never based on the current state of the world.

Regardless, the people of Mexico decided that more of the same was actually kind of what they wanted to do with self governance. And they tried first to have a monarch. They went around looking for a sovereign. Due to spanish meddling, they were unable to find any takers.

And this led the creole elite to accept the proclamation of Augustin de Turbide as emperor of Mexico, a man born in Mexico. And empire is actually the right word here. Mexico was huge.

It used to stretch from the top of the american state of California all the way down to modern Panama. So a pretty large territory, but it turbide did that thing that a lot of people do when they get into a position of inscrutable power.

And he became a despot. And it turned out that he was actually not such a fan of the constitution. As he became more dictatorial and dissolved congress.

He was initially dedicated to commerce as a vocation, but he loved the literary and intellectual circles in Mexico. Over time, he was a poet, a theater critic, a playwright, an orator, and a columnist for various publications.

Eventually he became the general administrator of Rhodes and the editor of the official gazette of the supreme government.

Here we again have another writer that has a fairly light historical footprint, even though he seems to have been a decent and more interesting than the record states person. He is considered an important person in the history of Mexico, though, and he is buried in the rotunda of illustrious men in Mexico City.

He had an uncle Bernardo, though, that became his guardian, and this guy was all right, and he financed Jamie's musical studies in Barcelona and in Italy. By the time he was 15, Nuno was writing music, and the very first complete piece he made was for mixed choir and piano.

He was married twice, not when he was 15. This happened later. He had a child in the first marriage and two in the second.

He was a composer, a concert pianist, conductor, and an opera director.

Santa Ana is another guy you should read about because he has a very complicated story. Jamie arrived just in time for the national anthem contest, and obviously he won more on that in a few.

This was one year after Texas ended its nine year independence for Mexico by becoming a state and just days before the US Congress declared war on Mexico, which happened on May 13 and followed an attack in disputed territory. The mexican american war led to the occupation of Mexico City itself by the us military and subsequently the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

With this treaty, Mexico sold the northern territories to the US.

The people living there were granted full citizenship, plus voting and property rights, and the US assumed the debt that Mexico had to private us citizens. It also led to the president's exile to Cuba and some pretty serious national disheartenment with the progress of the country.

So when the guy that lost the war came back into power again, as part of his effort to raise national morale, he established concurrent contests for the lyrics and the music of a new national anthem. Like I said, our poet is a typical anthem writer and we sort of know just a bit about the guy.

But that is, however, an amazing and probably apocryphal tale about him writing the anthem.

His future wife at the time, who is also his cousin, was pressuring him to make an entry into the contest, despite his insistence that he wrote love poems and that they are different things from national anthems. She proceeded to lock him into a disused bedroom and refused to let him out until he produced an entry.

It is supposed to have taken him 4 hours to write the mammoth poem you'll hear later. So that and all the things I've read saying this is just a story give me doubts, but it is a fun scenario to imagine.

And I will just say one thing about Giovanni. He is said to have turned the double bass into a respectable instrument because he was just so good. Maybe look him up if you're into the double bass.

However, he was not that good at writing music for lyrics that he'd never seen, because that's like really hard.

And that meant that despite winning, because it was actually a nice piece of music, it just didn't work with the lyrics, and people making the decision wanted those lyrics. So they ditched the song and they held a new contest.

By then, President General Santa Ana had invited Jamie to Mexico, and he decided to make an entry himself. It was obvious that they went with his choice because I'm talking about it, but mostly because it's actually an excellent piece of music.

We are not presented with a refreshingly simple song as in the case of Nepal, but we are given a highly technical italian march. It's mostly played in bb major, and as my knowledge of keys has increased, I've learned that it's a key with a bright and uplifting feeling.

The singing feels like it is in a range for an average person, about an octave and a half. I think I can handle that. And I'm nothing like great writing.

This has got me thinking that maybe I like an anthem to be something that basically anybody can sing. It's food for thought for me.

I guess I've learned from much smarter people than me that there is a mix of stepwise motion and some large leaps in this song which make it a dynamic piece of music. The mexican national anthem does a lot to reach the mostly not musically trained public. It's in four four.

It's an extremely well made piece of music and another example of an anthem writer absolutely nailing the assignment.

It was originally composed for a full military band, but as the song has aged, you can find people playing it on pretty much anything that they can play lyrically and in its original form. This is not a short anthem. It is ten verses with a refrain after each.

Jamie's family is supposed to have sold off the copyright, leading to the anthem becoming copyrighted in the United States when they were actually supposed to gift it to the government in Mexico. The origin of this legend is almost certainly because Nuno and his american publishers registered the song with BMI, an american record company.

Anyway, I'm just going to get through this anthem, because it will take a couple of minutes to read, and then I'm going to talk about it as a whole. And in fact, I think that's kind of where I'm landing going forward, but we'll see. It just turns out that that's what I keep doing.

I will read the chorus at the beginning and at the end only, and additionally I'll note that this is a reading of an english translation and that the anthem was written in Spanish. The chorus sung after each of the verses.

Mexicans at the cry of war assemble the steel and the bridle and the earth trembles to its core, to the resounding roar of the cannon. Now I will read on through the verses. Encircle, O Fatherland, your temples with olives, the divine archangel of peace.

For in heaven your eternal destiny was written by the finger of goddess.

If, however, a foreign enemy would dare to profane your ground with their soul, think, o beloved fatherland, that heaven has given a soldier in every sun. In bloody battles you saw them, their chests palpitating for your love, face the shrapnel calmly and seek death or glory.

If the memory of ancient deeds of your children inflames the mind, the laurels of triumph, your forehead they will return immortally to adorn like the holm oak struck by lightning to the deep. Torrent collapses, discord. Defeated, impotent, it fell to the feet of the archangel. No more. The blood of your children spill in fights of brothers.

Just find the steel in his hands.

Whoever insulted your sacred name of the immortal warrior Zempowallah, the terrible sword defends you and its invincible arm upholds your sacred tricolor banner. He will be of the happy Mexican, the Cardillo, in peace and war, because he knew how his guns of brilliance to surround the fields of honor. War. War.

With no mercy to any who shall try to tarnish the coats of the fatherland. War. War. The national banners shall be drenched into waves of blood. War. War.

On the mountain in the valley, the cannons thunder in horrid unison, and the sonorous echoes resound with bellows of union liberty. O Fatherland.

Brave. Keep going. And to the fierce bradoons, let them serve the defeated ensigns as a carpet.

The laurels of triumph will give shade to the forehead of the brave commander. To the patriotic homes return, proud the warrior to sing his victory, showing off the palms of glory that he knew how to conquer.

In the fight, their bloody laurels will turn into garlands of myrtles and roses, since the love of daughters and wives also know how to reward the brave, and he who to the blowing of burning shrapnel, succumbs to the altar of the fatherland will obtain in reward a tomb where the light of glory shines, and of Igwala, the dear ensign linked to his bloody sword, crowned with an immortal laurel, and will form the cross of his grave. Fatherland, Fatherland. Your children are sure to breathe until their last for your sake.

If the bugle with its bellicose accent calls them together to battle with courage, for you the olive wreaths, for them a reminder of glory, for you, a laurel of victory, for them a tome of honor. And then again we hear the chorus for a final time.

Mexicans at the cry of war assemble the steel and the bridle and the earth trembles to its core, to the resounding roar of the cannon. The mexican national anthem is a well written piece of patriotic poetry that deeply resonates with the history, culture and identity of Mexico.

There is some very vivid imagery and very emotional language.

The song powerfully conveys a sense of national pride and praises the readiness of the people to defend the homeland, even if they have to die for their country.

The chorus repeated in between each verse serves as a rallying cry that unifies the people with a call to arms, emphasizing the themes of solidarity and resistance. I think it's definitely the most explicitly warlike anthem that we have encountered so far.

Maybe, but I am pretty sure that is not the most warlike one that we will hear by a long shot.

The opening verse sets a divine tone invoking the blessings and protection of the archangel of peace while asserting the heavenly, preordained destiny of the nation. Again, we are in a heavily christian country, so that should not be a surprise that this is written like this.

In fact, when the anthem was published, the mexican government was still three years away from removing the catholic church from running a significant part of the government.

One thing you might have noticed in this anthem is a whiplash juxtaposition of peace and readiness for war as it tries to underscore the dual nature of patriotism. So something like a desire for harmony and the preparedness to defend it.

Ive noted at least a few times that we are dealing with some explicitly nationalist material when were dealing with anthems.

For many people, especially possibly people that do things like write national anthems, patriotism is so deeply rooted that it is basically an emotion. What that also means is that when stuff is being treated like an emotion, it does not have to make sense all the time.

The subsequent verses in the song build on these themes by recounting historical battles and the sacrifices made by the nation's heroes.

The vivid descriptions of bloody conflicts, people being calm in the face of shrapnel, and the pursuit of death or glory, seek to immortalize the courage and valor of mexican citizen soldiers.

The anthem also delves into the internal struggles with verse three addressing the tragic bloodshed among brothers, a reference to the many civil conflicts that have had and continue to have deleterious effects on Mexico.

This acknowledgment of past discord, coupled with the call to unite against external threats, seeks to convey the importance of national unity as well as national strength.

The anthem's rich use of metaphor and symbolism, such as the comparison of discord to a defeated, falling army, adds a layer of poetic depth that elevates the text beyond mere patriotic song to a profound narrative of struggle, sacrifice, and resilience.

The repeated invocation of natural and martial imagery, the oak tree struck by lightning cannons, thundering fields watered with blood, all this creates a visceral connection to the land and the physical realities of war.

This not only grounds the anthem in the mexican landscape, but it also serves to remind the citizens of the tangible and historical roots of their national identity.

Overall, the mexican national anthems blend of poetic language, historical reflection, and emotive call to unity and defense makes it a powerful and effective anthem that continues to inspire and unite the mexican people.

It checks off pretty much every box that you would think a national anthem ought to check off, and we got an interesting story out of it that got me to learn a bunch of cool stuff, and hopefully you learned a bit of it too. I'm going to remind you again that I have joined the Creator Accountability Network.

CAN is a non profit dedicated to reducing harassment and abuse through ethical education and a system of restorative accountability.

I joined because I care about the safety and well being of community members and I believe people should hold themselves accountable for what they do.

So if you have skills that you think would be helpful or even just time and desire to help, please visit the website and find out how you can do that.

Even more importantly, please get the word out to other creators who you think would be interested in getting credentialed and help build safer communities onto the credits. The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and recorded the theme music. I used that music with my permission.

Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are public domain or some other equivalently free to play license, and this time I got the okay from the singer before using her version of the anthem. Vivian Luna is a mexican singer and can be found pretty much on all the social media platforms.

You should look them up and listen to more of her music.

My sources and the specific items I mentioned in the show are contained in the show notes and the most direct way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast and when I do post on Facebook, it's about the show and you've heard like a whole episode of that at this point, so you should follow me there and I'll let you know when I have another one. For now, I try to get the episode shared on whatever platform I can with the hashtag anthemspod.

It would be cool if you hashtag the post like that and let people know about this stuff, and it also might mean that a butterfly flaps its wings where you live and stops a tsunami somewhere else.

As always, you can email me corrections, comments, concerns, suggestions, ideas, instructions on how to do awesome things and even ask me questions@anthemspodmail.com.

Or give me a rating on your podcast app, because ratings and reviews matters to the algorithm, and they matter to all of the people on the Internet because of that.

Or maybe you're a skilled white hat hacker and somehow get this episode playing on a random bar's jukebox, but even if all you do is stick around for another one, which is honestly more than I expected, and I'm actually quite grateful for that. So thanks. I'll see you next time.