The inauguration of Gov. Josh Shapiro at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg on Jan. 17, 2023.
Commonwealth Media Services
Russ Diamond has written you a song. You and 13 million other Pennsylvanians who have been living under the pall of an official commonwealth anthem so dull and uninspiring, critics say, it demands a government-sanctioned mulligan.
Diamond, the Republican state representative from Lebanon County with a “hair band” background and a record imprint to his name, is one such critic, though he’s as diplomatic as possible about it. The current state song isn’t awful, he told PA Local by phone, but it isn’t great either, and only a legally codified change of tune can fix that shortcoming.
“The state song we have now … I don’t think there’s any bad music,” Diamond hedged. “It’s just — is it appropriate? It should have more of a hook, an earworm that gets stuck in somebody’s head. And it should be able to be adapted to different styles and formats.”
So Diamond, whose last musical output was a COVID-era, right wing-coded remix of a song he’d first written while running for lieutenant governor in 2010, penned a new one. It’s called “Pennsylvania: The Keystone of my Heart,” and he’s pretty pleased with the result.
“I’m not saying my song should become THE official state song, but it is a simple and adaptable composition that would be more suitable to the task,” Diamond wrote in a Jan. 11 email blast to colleagues before slamming on the brakes. “Wait - who the heck am I trying to kid? My song would make an AWESOME official state song and I think it SHOULD be!!!”
The email, which included several links to him performing the ditty in a “follow the bouncing ball,” singalong-style video, went on to note that while Diamond doesn’t plan to push legislation to make it official, any of his 200-plus state House colleagues sure could.
“My solid reputation as a quiet and modest public servant who avoids all divisiveness and controversy precludes me from selfishly introducing a bill to make my song our official state song,” he cajoled. “(Don't let that deter any of you from offering it as an amendment to Rep. Ciresi’s bill, though!!! 😂).” That bill, now two sessions old, would launch a new state song search and give the General Assembly the final say.
If history is any indication, getting a large enough buy-in may prove tricky. In the years before Pennsylvania settled on its current state song in 1990 — a somewhat stodgy march plainly titled “Pennsylvania” — lawmakers weighed plenty of entries, most of which played into regional identities. Former state Rep. Merle Phillips (R., Northumberland) was among the lawmakers to vote against the eventual winner, remarking to a Poconos-based news service at the time, "I had introduced a song for my constituents that I thought was nicer."
Diamond’s song without question sounds more contemporary than our current one, which was penned by a songwriting team from metro Philly and chosen by legislators over runners-up like “Pennsylvania - Gee! It's Great!” and several other tunes also named “Pennsylvania” — a word that rhymes with next to nothing.
But he’ll have to convince fellow lawmakers of his composition’s merits, some of whom are musicians themselves. Among them are Jesse Topper (R., Bradford), a proficient piano player seen here performing for residents of a senior living community in his district.
There’s also Ann Flood (R., Northampton), a vocalist and wedding singer who got her start performing the national anthem in high school in honor of family friends serving in the first Gulf War and never stopped. She called Diamond’s song “a catchy tune that really captures the heart of Pennsylvania.”
Jim Struzzi (R., Indiana), former lead singer of the metal band Genghis Khan, was a little more critical. “I told Russ he could have gotten a better vocalist,” he joked.
“But no, I thought it was clever,” he added. “I liked his spin on it. I have his CD actually from back in the day with his 80’s hair, you know, so Russ and I have that in common. I thought he did a good job with it.”
Photo submitted
State Rep. Jim Struzzi (R., Indiana), right, with Genghis Khan.
Struzzi was initially skeptical of talk to overhaul the state song. “At first I thought, why do we really need to do this? But I can see the need for it. If you get something catchy that draws people’s attention to Pennsylvania, I think we should consider it.”
In Luzerne County, Democratic state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, a rocker who’s still performing decades after one of his earliest bands, The Starfires, first packed Northeast Pennsylvania dance halls and backed up the likes of Chubby Checker at Harveys Lake, is also receptive.
“I like his song,” Pashinski said of Diamond. But he would prefer to tap the state’s full talent pool if a search gets underway: “What I’d like to do is try to … create a competition so that people from anywhere, including professionals, could submit their entry for a new state song.”
Photo submitted
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski (D., Luzerne), foreground.
A wave has been building around this cause, slowly and crescendo-like, for years. State Rep. Joe Ciresi (D., Montgomery), a trained vocalist with a bachelor’s degree in music business from the University of Miami, has been leading the charge. In 2023, he described our current song as flat, forgettable, dated, and not adequately serving the commonwealth’s PR needs. He even auditioned his idea of a more effective and modern-sounding approach to PA Local by phone from his Harrisburg office, using an 80s-era Miami tourism jingle as inspiration.
This session, when Ciresi reintroduced his bill to find a new state song, Diamond was waiting with a tune he wrote over several days and quickly copyrighted.
“That's actually one thing that you have to talk about when you're talking about a state song is the intellectual property rights,” he told PA Local. “The state is kind of endorsing, and whoever wrote that song is getting, you know, royalty payments, that sort of thing. I realized, hey, for me to vote for that on the floor, that would be maybe a conflict of interest.”
He elaborated: “The only reason I really copyrighted it is to preserve it so that nobody else is going to exploit it commercially. I would be willing to, like, forgo that if I need to.” He might.
Nancy Mancine
State Rep. Russ Diamond (R., Lebanon) in his "hair band" days.
The law establishing Pennsylvania’s current state song required all rights be handed over to the commonwealth, which “shall not charge anyone” for its reproduction or use.
Diamond said he’s made his sheet music available online for free and is open to rearrangements. “I just want people to sing it, even if it doesn't become the state song,” he added.
It could happen. But while the legislative chorus builds, the process may end up becoming more freeform (read: unwieldy) than his supporters simply falling into place.
Just take it from one half of the songwriting team behind Pennsylvania’s current anthem, Eddie Khoury, a retired prison administrator who told the Associated Press in 1989: "When you throw 200 to 300 songs in the pot and yours comes out on top, you've got to have an element of luck."
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