Acey
Member
- Joined
- 16 Nov 2018
- Messages
- 252
I Vow to Thee My Country,says it all for me( nice tune as well )
Which is exactly the point.That's English and not UK though!
I've had a horrible vision of England's footballers in Qatar doing the anthem before a game, with half of them singing "God Save The Queen" before the game out of habit, and half of them remembering to sing "King" instead...
Perhaps now would be a good time to adopt a different anthem for the England team rather than just "borrowing" the UK anthem?
That has already been done by Flanders & Swann in their Song of Patriotic Prejudice where they discuss the issue regarding every other country has a National Anthem but us. What is the English National Anthem? Jerusalem.I think so too.
Jerusalem, perhaps?
Jerusalem is pretty much the unofficial England anthem, while God Save The King/Queen was always for the full UK. I have to say I very much like Jerusalem.I've had a horrible vision of England's footballers in Qatar doing the anthem before a game, with half of them singing "God Save The Queen" before the game out of habit, and half of them remembering to sing "King" instead...
Perhaps now would be a good time to adopt a different anthem for the England team rather than just "borrowing" the UK anthem?
Good to see that point being made!The thing about Jerusalem is that it is a radical, almost socialist, anthem about building a better and fairer world. Too many of those who sing it believe, probably unthinkingly, that it says that England is the perfect country. What it is saying, and I am far from the only person to believe this, is that we do not live in a perfect country, but that we should strive to build one here.
Parry’s Music is rousing and the words are magnificent, but it is a call to arms to build A New Jerusalem, not a complacent pat on the back for being so good. Read the words and think: the answers to the questions in the first verse are all No, and the second exhorts us to strive to build a better place.
If you're doing music only then Pomp and Circumstance is fine. It's really only the Land of Hope and Glory words which make it unrealistic.Good to see that point being made!
There seems to be a problem with the words of most of the possible alternative (fine) melodies that people propose. As above (and more!) with Jerusalem. Then the second verse of "I vow to thee my country is going to pose problems for some people. And as for the words of "Land of Hope and Glory" in a country now of little hope and no glory ... And various others.
Do we have to end up with the old East German solution, where the words of the national anthem were deemed unsuitable a and so never used and there was effectively a national anthem of music only? In that case, either Parry's music for "Jerusalem" or the extract from Holst for "I vow to thee" would do very well.
The French seem to get on fine with something that broadly translates as "let the blood of our enemies flow through the furrows of our fields".Regarding the US national anthem, I am not sure that many people would be happy with the lyrics "bombs bursting in air".
I think there's some historical context missing here, for the most part the adoption of specific anthems for Scotland and Wales is a relatively modern phenomena. In the past these were not the case, and GSTQ would have been used in all circumstances.Using the same anthem for England as you do for the whole UK implies that England = UK. God Save the Queen should really only be used when more than one home nation is involved.
"Unrealistic"...?If you're doing music only then Pomp and Circumstance is fine. It's really only the Land of Hope and Glory words which make it unrealistic.