God Bless New California

"God Bless New California" is the national anthem of the New California Republic, adapted from the pre-war state song of California in 2199 by Rico "Tallahassee" Thompson for the New California Arts and Culture Foundation's "Voice of the Nation" contest, and later formally adopted as part of the Education Standards and Spending Act of 2216.
==Lyrics==
==History==
"God Bless New California" is an adapted cover of "I Love You California," the pre-war state song of California, first written in 1913 by lyricist Francis Beatty Silverwood and composer Abraham Franklin Frankenstein and formally adopted by the state government in 1951. The original lyrics were:
Several additional verses praising other features of pre-war California have been lost; one damaged recording indicates that the Golden Gate in San Francisco was among these features. Despite its status as the state song, "I Love You California" was, like most state songs, largely sidelined and forgotten by the general public in favor of the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."
===NCR Anthem===
In 2199, the New California Arts and Culture Foundation was formed by order of the Tandi Administration with funding from the NCR federal government. The Foundation's first public initiative, launched on the day of its formation, was the "Voice of the Nation" contest. This contest, held across the NCR's five states, was billed as a means to select the new nation's national anthem and celebrate Californian musicians. A total of 42 submissions were collected over the course of the year, with the majority coming from the Hub, Shady Sands, and Adytum. 
The following year, public polls were held in each state to determine the finalists, with many submissions being played on local radio stations in order to promote both the contest and the DJs' preferred choices. The polling was handled by representatives of the NCACF, and submissions were not marked with their origin, in order to dissuade voting based on one's state of origin and emphasize unity within the Republic.
The first round of polling narrowed the field to ten finalists, which were announced at the 11th Unification Day celebration in Shady Sands and broadcast over the airwaves. A second poll was held afterwards to determine the winner. The winner would be selected as the national anthem and its writer awarded a cash prize of 2000 caps; the runner-up would be awarded 1000 caps and all other finalists awarded 500 caps. The final results, with an "honorable mention" given to an 11th place write-in candidate, were:
# "God Bless New California," by Rico "Tallahassee" Thompson
# "The Waves of the Pacific," by Frank Lincoln Covington
# "The Heart of the West," by Tomasz Dembowski
# "Out of Ashes," by Celine Wilson
# "A River in a Dry Land," by Lyn Megami
# "The Desert Rose," by Malik Rahmani
# "Home on the Wastes," by William Gregory Alanson
# "The Waters of Life," by "Lonesome" Liam Jameson
# "Bound by Sand and Steel," by Louis Cabbot
# "The Sandy Road," by Typhon
# "The Shady Sands Shuffle," by Anonymous
After "God Bless New California"'s victory in the contest, radio stations and civic governments across the NCR's territory adopted the song as the national anthem. While the Tandi Administration did use make use of the song at public events, it was not formally codified as the national anthem by NCR law, as the federal government's focus remained on matters of civic infrastructure and social welfare. 
===Rediscovery of Origins===
By 2212, "Tallahassee Thompson" was regarded as one of the nation's most prolific musicians,DJ: "Coming up next, we have yet another single from the one, the only, Tallahassee Thompson: "Time Enough for Love"... I tell ya, if he keeps putting these out, I'm not gonna have time enough for any other records!" [laughter](KHUB broadcast, June 12th 2202) though not necessarily its best."Sure, everyone with a radio may know [Thompson's] hits. But often forgotten are his lengthy laundry list of singles that haven't been played in a decade. "Quantity over quality" is the phrase that defines Thompson's music best, with dozens upon dozens of songs to his name in under a decade of performing and only a few true hits among them. Far be it from us to criticize, of course: for nearly a century since the bombs wiped away the Old World, art and culture have been a distant memory, forsaken in the name of survival. In his dogged drive to write and record as much music as possible, Thompson truly embodies the spirit of our nation: the drive to create, to inspire, and to let beauty shine in this world once again..."(Excerpt from Tallahasse Thompson: A Musical Retrospective in the Hub City Chronicle, April 2208) Though largely retired by that point, his music still received significant airtime on radio stations across the nation. In 2215, to celebrate the anniversary of the song and Thompson's career, representatives of the NCACF presented him a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 10th annual Republic Culture Festival in the Hub.
Thompson's acceptance speech, broadcast on national airwaves, agitated several of his former collaborators, as well as Harold B. Gutierrez, a 169-year old ghoul music enthusiast from Dayglow who had recently moved to Adytum. After a chance encounter with two of Thompson's former collaborators at a bar, Gutierrez inquired at local radio stations about Thompson's discography, and discovered upon comparison to his own collection of preserved pre-war records that many of Thompson's compositions and lyrics were partially or entirely plagiarized from pre-war artists.
Gutierrez and Thompson's former collaborators subsequently contacted NCR Public Access Radio and arranged a series of interviews, which were collected into a major exposé that permanently tarnished Thompson's career and led to the revocation of his Lifetime Achievement Award. A selected list of songs plagiarized by Thompson was published in multiple newspapers, including "I Love You, California."
===Controversy===
The discovery of the national anthem's pre-war origins initially did little to dampen its popularity, with the general consensus being that, plagiarism controversy aside, it was nonetheless a fitting choice of anthem for a nation seeking to embody and revive pre-war ideals and ways of life. However, a small but vocal minority in the Boneyard campaigned throughout 2215 to have the song retroactively disqualified from the Voice of the Nation contest, based on the exact wording of the rules specifying that entries must be "original compositions."
This campaign was led and largely promoted by former musician Frank Lincoln Covington, host of local talk radio station KEDN and writer of the contest's runner-up entry "The Waves of the Pacific." Covington had, since founding KEDN, become known primarily for his extreme anti-mutant political beliefs and frequent on-air rants calling for the forced removal of ghouls from Bakersfield,Covington: "...and I won't allow the PANSIES tryin' to act like everything's all FINE AND DANDY up in Bakersfield — "ooh, noo, they named it Necropolis," IT'S FUCKIN' BAKERSFIELD — I won't let these pinko fucks pretend that everyone up there's singin' Kumbaya... they're NOT, people, it's fuckin' anarchy up there. You can't walk down your street without some zombie losin' their shit and comin' at you. And that's another thing, "zombie," everybody freaks out about that word, "zombie," lemme tell you—"(KEDN segment "Let's Be Frank", September 21st, 2214) the expulsion of Dayglow from the Republic,Covington: "...y'know, it's... there's SCIENCE. I mean we're not dealin' with an issue of FAIRNESS, here people, this is about PUBLIC SAFETY! I mean, you look at Bakersfield, and just... how many people gotta get mauled by zombies before we say "enough is enough?!" Dayglow — yeah, I'm sure there's some very fine ghouls in Dayglow — they are BETTER OFF on their own! And we're better off without THEM!"(KEDN segment "Let's Be Frank", December 5th, 2214) and the extermination of super mutants.Covington: "You know, I am sick and tired of these FASCISTS and PINKOS out there tryin' to shut me up. God, like... "oooh, you're a racist," "you're advocatin' genocide" — let me get one thing straight for you fuckin' PINKOS out there: exterminating a SEPARATE SPECIES that is a THREAT TO HUMANITY is not GENOCIDE, it is PEST CONTROL. And these frankensteins are some dangerous fuckin' pests, people. I mean, the Unity — do you people have ANY idea how many people those freaks killed? How many caravans just got — POOF! Wiped off the fuckin' map by them, back in the '60s? They are out to DESTROY HUMANITY, people! It is US or THEM! And I won't let those FASCISTS in the Adytum city council silence me! You wanna throw me outta the town hall, "disorderly conduct," "causing a disturbance," YOU COME DOWN TO THE STATION I'LL SHOW YOU A FUCKIN' "DISTURBANCE"! ...It's censorship, people. They don't want to face the TRUTH!"(KEDN segment "Let's Be Frank", May 6th, 2213)
It was generally believed at the time that Covington's fierce campaign to have "The Waves of the Pacific" retroactively declared the national anthem was in large part an attempt to bring attention to his platform and legitimize his ideology in the public eye. It instead had the opposite effect: as news of Covington's campaign spread, the President Tandi and her Administration took notice and swiftly moved to introduce two new bills to congress: the Standards & Practices in Broadcasting Act and the Education Standards & Spending Act.
The first of these acts instituted new content guidelines for public broadcasting banning "extreme explicit content" from public airwaves, including graphic acts of violence, sexual acts, and endorsement of, or calls for, violence and other criminal activity. The second was largely unrelated to the controversy, having been first proposed over a year beforehand as a means of standardizing education across the Republic, but notably had a provision added shortly before its introduction to congress specifying that "God Bless New California" would be legally recognized as the national anthem of the NCR.
Both bills were swiftly passed, and were signed into law in spring of 2216. By the end of the year, KEDN had been shut down by NCR state troopers, and Covington was legally barred from operating a radio station for "repeated and willful violations" of the Standards & Practices Act. While the controversy largely faded from public memory in the subsequent decades, "The Waves of the Pacific" nonetheless became symbolic of anti-mutant sentiment within the Republic, and quoting portions of its lyrics was commonly used as a dogwhistle indicating support or sympathy for the bigoted beliefs espoused by Covington.Aaron Kimball: "Today, you are the waves of the Pacific, pushing ever eastward. You are the sequoias rising from the Sierra Nevadas, defiant and enduring."(Aaron Kimball's speech at Hoover Dam, 2281)
==References==
Category:New California Republic
Category:Music