"Teen Spirit" is widely interpreted to be a teen revolution anthem, an interpretation reinforced by the song's music video.
So is her interpretation of the anthem of self-discovery that follows, which in other hands might have seemed too pat.
Serge Gainsbourg received death threats on the release of "Aux Armes et cætera", his 1979 reggae interpretation of French anthem "La Marseillaise", and Nico dedicated her 1974 version of the German state song "Das Lied Der Deutshcen" to the terrorist Andreas Baader.
"I didn't want people to say this is some guy's interpretation of what the world anthem should be.
The Court took the view that "the appellant's interpretation of the pledge and anthem ceremony as a religious ceremony was a distortion of secular fact into religious belief".
Picked up by O'Connor, her emotive interpretation transformed the song into the ultimate anthem of loss and pain, its success further boosted by the song's iconic music video.
A serious interpretation of a notoriously cheesy Eurodance anthem seems like a stretch, but somehow it works.
It plays three melodies in the recording: the British national anthem, the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Blacksheep," and an interpretation of Glenn Miller's swing composition "In The Mood".
His national anthem was divisive, to say the least: As it turned out, Feliciano's guitar-based, bluesy interpretation of the national anthem was believed to be one of the first times anybody deviated from the standard version at a public event.
The Occupy Wall Street protests have inspired songs (if not an anthem) and marriage proposals, demonstrations across the globe, and a daily outpouring of reactions and interpretations that this new feature on City Room aims to collect and curate.
