OTTAWA — It’s just two lyrics. But it took decades to change them.

Canada’s Senate on Wednesday approved changing the words of “O Canada,” the country’s national anthem, to make the English-language version gender neutral. The move came after decades of unsuccessful efforts, and some last-minute political drama.

Now the second line of the anthem, which gained official status only in 1980, will soon become “True patriot love in all of us command” rather than “in all thy sons command.”

“It may be small,” said Senator Frances Lankin, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, to reporters on Wednesday after the vote. “It’s about two words. But it’s huge in terms of one of our major national symbols, the anthem we sing with pride about our country. And we can now sing it with pride knowing the rules will support us, the law will support us in terms of the language and we will sing — all of us.”