Vande Mataram from the above prose translation, Sri Aurobindo also translated "Vande Mataram" into a verse form known as "Mother, I praise thee!". Sri Aurobindo commented on his English translation of the poem that "It is difficult to translate the National Song of India into verse in another language owing to its unique union of sweetness, simple directness and high poetic force." Vande Mataram has inspired many Indian poets and has been translated into numerous Indian languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi and others. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was one of the earliest graduates of the newly
Of Thee I Sing In addition, as an integrated song-and-story production it produced fewer hit songs than many of the Gershwins' musicals. Ira Gershwin explained, "In the show there are no verse-and-chorus songs; there is a sort of recitative running along, and lots of finales and finalettos." Ira Gershwin recalled that the title song, inspired by the final phrase of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", was somewhat controversial among the production staff. "When we first played this sentimental political campaign song... there were objectors who thought that juxtaposing the dignified 'of thee I sing' with a slangy 'baby' was going a bit too far.