Land of dope and snoring

[undyingking]

If you're respectably at work or somewhere today rather than able to watch the TV at lunch like me, you may not be aware that a minor hoo-hah is afoot about England's anthem at the Commonwealth Games.

At previous such events, when an English competitor / team won gold, the medal ceremony was soundtracked by 'Land of Hope and Glory'. This time round though there was a public poll which prompted a change to use 'Jerusalem' instead.

Now it's actually happening though, people are complaining that they don't know the words and that it goes on too long.

I don't know about you, but I missed the poll at the time, so here I will in part recreate it and also add some extras.

[Poll #1627902]

I personally favour Jerusalem, because I think William Blake's poetry rather more inspiring than the bombastic hackwork that AC Benson churned out for Land of Hope and Glory. For one thing, the line about "Wider and still wider / Shall thy bounds be set" seems singularly inappropriate for a Commonwealth event involving countries who owe their existence to the belated retrenchment of those bounds. Also, it seems to me that piously hoping that God will make the nation mightier runs a poor second to strapping on one's bow of burning gold and setting out to achieve a better England directly by human effort.

(And LoHaG is the anthem of the Conservative Party, while Jerusalem was the anthem of the women's suffrage movement. There you go.)

I wonder though why 'I Vow to Thee, My Country' wasn't offered as an option? Maybe too slow…

Comments

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Looks like I need another option of "I'm basically a happy person"...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

You have to apply in advance if you want to be happy on my LJ!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I wonder though why 'I Vow to Thee, My Country' wasn't offered as an option?

Probably Holst is too perniciously foreign :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

At least he was decent C of E though, not a dodgy Pope-kisser like Elgar.

Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

I prefer Jerusalem and not just because it was featured in a Monty Python sketch but it is more Christian than LoHaG which is a downer for me.

Re: Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of lif

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, being at least somewhat Christian seems to come with the territory.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Also a bonus for Jerusalem: it doesn't, as far as I'm aware, have any dirty words. I'm sure it soon would have if it were commonly used as a CWG anthem. I know at least one set of rude words to LoHaG (despite not actually knowing the proper ones).

[tylorva.livejournal.com]

I prefer LoHaG - it's faster and a much more upbeat sounding melody, which I think is more fitting for sporting events. Plus also less obviously Christian.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Is a hymn really appropriate for a culturally diverse team? That would be my objection.
That said, "God save the Queen" isn't exactly secular, either and it's probably hard to find a Western anthem that doesn't reference Christianity in some way.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Would a self-consciously secular anthem be any more representative?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think as the nation (UK at least, not sure about England :-) is explicitly constituted as Christian, that's probably unavoidable.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I like Jerusalem. Full Stop. I love William Blake's work in general, and the tune that was added later manages to... well... hit just the right note, as it were.

Land of Hope and Glory has been far too tainted by Toriness for me ever to like it or acknowledge it as in any way representative of me. No more than I would expect a committed Tory to like the idea of The Red Flag being their national anthem.

Mind you, there is a part of me that considers my real national anthem to be Ilkley Moor Bar t'At!!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Is that the only realistic contender for Yorkshire county anthem, or would there be other strong candidates and a vicious backbiting campaign?

(Not sure what the Essex anthem would be. Ian Dury's 'Billericay Dickie' perhaps?)

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I have heard that Ilkley Moor Bar t'At was actually written by a Lancastrian, although I have no verification of that! In any case, I can't honestly think of any other Yorkshire anthems that are anything like as well known. Northumberland has a strong tradition of producing folk songs and music, but God's Own Country rather less so, I fear.

Surely Essex would go for a Chaz & Dave number?!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Chas and Dave are North Londoners, and Spurs fans! -- they only pretend to be Cockneys. That would be rank anathema to Essex folk.

Billy Bragg would be a good option; he like Dury is from the historic Essex. His 'A13' might be apt: "If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness / Take the A road, the OK road that's the best / Go motorin' on the A13."

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

I'd take "New England" or "Tear Down the Union Jack" as anthems, please bob.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

I Vow To Thee My Country would, I think, be harder to sing.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, good point, especially if you're tired and shagged out after a long squawk out of breath after a long swim or whatever.

[chilledchimp.livejournal.com]

Apparently Holst was not happy about words being written to Jupiter. I wasn't either - I would have liked Jupiter played at my wedding but couldn't as it's the tune to a hymn, which isn't allowed at a civil ceremony (and people would have thought I was copying Princess Di.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't realize you couldn't have instrumental music that happened to have had a hymn set to it. Seems very harsh.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Aye. Uncivil, even.

Is it a demarcation issue?

[chilledchimp.livejournal.com]

I knew you couldn't have hymns, so I didn't even ask the Registrar. There was also the Diana thing - most people know it as I Vow to Thee... and I didn't want them thinking I was copying Charles and Di. There are Daily Mail readers in the family.

I agree with ninthcouncil - God Save the Queen is tedious. The only good version is by Al Murray and Dean Gaffney and involves the Queen falling into her chest freezer whilst trying to retrieve a swan for dinner.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

S'true. God Save the Queen is tedious. The tune always sounds like it needs winding up. I prefer Rule Britannia myself - largely for the tune. OK, some of the words may be a *smidgeon* on the bombastic side, but surely we could re-adopt it in a sort of post-modern, ironic way?

[ninthcouncil.livejournal.com]

Bizarrely, GstQ's rubbish tune has infected the rest of the world - there's a US version called God Bless America, it's been used by several different countries over time (including Russia (!) and Switzerland).

At least one other nation still has it as their anthem ("Oben am jungen Rhein"), as Scots football fans discovered to their vocal displeasure when playing Liechtenstein a few weeks ago....

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think God Bless America is a different tune, written by Irving Berlin in the 1920s. You may be thinking of My Country, 'Tis of Thee, which is sung to the GSTQ tune (although apparently the setter was unaware of this, he thought it was a German folk tune :-)

[ninthcouncil.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. OF course, the Americans also think the Red Flag is a German folk tune ;)

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I knew about the Swiss one - I used to have a lot of Swiss friends when I was doing TEFL. One of them insisted that we stole it from them. IIRC, it was written by Benjamin Britten, which makes it a remarkably simple one to defend!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

GStQ? I think it's a lot older than Britten -- it dates back to the Hanoverian takeover iirc.

I think the reason it got taken up such a lot elsewhere was that it was pretty much the first purpose-written national anthem; and lesser other nations who liked the idea at first thought they should just apply their own words to this tune, rather than also getting their own tune.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

You are right of course.

Where on Earth did I get that from? I know there was some connection that I'd heard with Britten, whether it was an arrangement he did or what, I can't remember, but yes, I was talking nonsense. Sorry about that.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest a Song of Patriotic Prejudice, I know all the words to that!

"The English, the English, the English are best, I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest"

...

"and they practice beforehand, which spoils the fun"

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Excellent, yes, I'd forgotten about that!

[ninthcouncil.livejournal.com]

Jerusalem > LoHag >> God Save The Queen. Jupiter / Thaxted is a top tune but the lyrics are redundant.

God Save The Queen is awful, though Flower of Scotland is worse, possibly the worst national anthem in the world, a tuneless dirge that goes on for ever. The Welsh kick us and the Scots into a cocked hat, though Land of My Fathers really has to be sung by 40,000 Welshmen in a rugby stadium to have its full effect.

The Russians beat everyone though.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The Scots are using Scotland the Brave at this CWG, in place of the normal Flower, and there's been a similar hoo-hah about that (although it has not yet had the opportunity to be played very often :-) but tbh I think they're each as bad as the other.

Mm, the Russian anthem is great. I was quite sad when they temporarily got rid of it after the Soviet Union breakup: Putin showed a very sure touch in bringing it back.

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

We always used to sing Jerusalem on the last day of the school year, so it fills me with anticipation of skiving off at midday and spending the next few weeks playing computer games.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Nice tradition! We used to always have a reading from 1 Corinthians: 13 on the last day of term. Which since then I have only really heard at weddings, producing a strange association.

[crowleycrow.livejournal.com]

I never heard or heard of "I Vow to Thee my COuntry" before reading about the ants in T.H. White's Once and Future King" singigng "I Vow to Thee my Smell." I sort of guessed there would be an original but not what it was. A lot of my Anglo-American reading/growing was like that, getting the parody first.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

So much of British culture is buried under layers of parody and satire, it must sometimes be hard for foreigners to come to it via any other route. Even if you were to sit a Brit down in a bar and get them to talk you through it face to face, the chances are that a certain amount of ironic obfuscation would come into play.

We have the same problem, though. I think I must have seen half a dozen parody versions of Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' before I was aware of the significance of the original (or even, which was the original).

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

I like Jerusalem. However I once read a suggestion that we should use Ian Dury and the Blockhead's 'Reasons to be Cheerful' as the national anthem, with the reasons themselves being frequently updated to reflect whatever great things are going on in the country at the time.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Good plan: we could have a TV competition in which people vote for which they think are the currently-great things, with celebrity advocates. (Although there is the danger that this programme might itself become one of the great things, and vanish into a vortex of self-referentiality.)

[ninthcouncil.livejournal.com]

Oh lord. You just know the advocates would be people like Rufus Hound and that chubby wall-eyed bird from T4, and that the winner would be Candle In The Wind.

I reckon we should still use GSTQ. Just the Sex Pistols version....

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Listening to it now, I think it's even better. Because picking up an athletics medal with 'Why don't you get back into bed' being chanted in the background would be awesome...

[mrsdanvers63.livejournal.com]

"Reasons to be Cheerful" would be excellent, but would need an update to remove the Americana and European references.

"Land of Dope and Tory" and Jerusalem are stirring, which I think is what you need in a national anthem; think of "The Marseillaise" - originally specifically titled as a war-song it's very blood-thirsty,( War song for the army of the Rhine), but England doesnt do stirring we do fawning.

GSTQ always conjures up the very rude playground joke and the Pistols.