The greatest story never told, this formidable and gorgeous biography documents the amazing and controversial short life of Calixa Lavallée - the composer of O Canada - and the tumult of 19th-century North America. The story of O Canada is one of the great unknowns of our collective lives. No longer. This formidable and gorgeous tale documents the history of this song of a nation, from its origins in French Canada in the years just after Confederation to the surprisingly controversial story of its adoption as Canada's national anthem 100 years later. Song of a Nation is also the extraordinary and mysterious story of Calixa Lavallée - the anthem's French-Canadian composer - and his compelling, almost unbelievable personal journey: his early life as a blackface minstrel, travelling throughout the United States for more than a decade; his service for the Union Army in the American Civil War; his production of the first opera in Quebec; and, in a final act, becoming a leading figure in American music education. To understand O Canada, and to understand the man who wrote it, is to return to the Canada of the mid-1800s, just forming as a nation, bringing together ancient racial hatreds and novel political possibilities. More than just a song, in its own story O Canada evokes the history of a country creating an identity for itself out of the unique forces and rivalries of French and English Canada, and looking to the infinite possibilities that lay ahead.