A Nation Once Again was voted the world's most popular song according to a BBC World Service global poll of listeners, ahead of "Vande Mataram", the national song of India. Davis copied the melody for the chorus from the second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto. The lyrics use a simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, with verses of eight lines, and alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Davis describes how he learned of ancient fighters for freedom as a boy — the three hundred Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae. The "three men" may refer to Horatius Cocles and his two companions
Of Thee I Sing is Mr. Gershwin's score. Whether it is satire, wit, doggerel or fantasy, Mr. Gershwin pours music out in full measure and in many voices. Although the book is lively, Mr. Gershwin is exuberant." In 1932, "Of Thee I Sing" became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The 1932 Pulitzer Prize Committee stated, ""Of Thee I Sing" is not only coherent and well-knit enough to class as a play, but it is a biting and true satire on American politics and the public attitude towards them... The play is genuine and it is felt the Pulitzer Prize