Posted on 07/24/2019 9:18:08 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Why is it Wales and Scotland, who share our monarch, both have stirring national songs while England plough on with our homage to Queen Elizabeth II? It's hardly the most uplifting and melodic of tunes...Compare it to France - whose tune La Marseillaise commences at 100mph without slowing down before it's defiant ending...Queen Elizabeth is our monarch, and quite rightly we sing for her. As we did for King George in the anthem's original adaption God save great George our king.
If we got rid of God Save the Queen, what would we sing?
When England compete in the Commonwealth Games, they sing the poem Jerusalem, it's regarded in many circles as the unofficial anthem of England. As well as its use at the Commonwealth Games, cricket fans following the country's fortunes sing it with gusto before play - however, the team still sing GSTQ.
"And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England's mountains green?"
It meanders through three verses before the final section that boasts the dramatic end...
"Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green and pleasant Land."
What about any other options? The patriotic song 'Land of Hope and Glory' is a contender.
'Rule, Britannia!' Now this is a song that could rival Brazil or Italy for its upbeat tempo. It screams out patriotism and defiance.
(Excerpt) Read more at coventrytelegraph.net ...
I’m not accusing Blake of radical egalitarianism but of “Romantic” pipe-dreamery.
America’s alabaster cities weren’t built solely on the oppressive labor practices of English industrialization. Feudalism had reigned in England for centuries, and merely shed its ermine for tweed when industry supplanted agriculture. America had rejected the feudal structures of the Mother Country and even though it indulged some of the same abuses, it did not go to the extremes Britain did in shunning its oppressive past.
We never empowered a Cromwell because we never needed one.
Both are incorrect, when taken in the extreme.
Prior to WWI the music and similar lyrics were used by Germany as its national anthem. Also Our “My Country Tis of Thee” came close to being our National anthem
You might be interested in reading "Labor's Untold Story" by Morais and Boyer. My father put it in my hands when I was about 12. (I'm a desendant of iron foundry workers and runaway indentured servant girls). You want land and labor stolen and sold, murder in the mines and mills, hungry mothers, battles, and bloody betrayals---
There are a number of things different about the US and Britain, of course. The oppressed in the British Isles died alongside their children in the workhouses --- or came to the USA. And the oppressed in the USA went West. We had that safety valve: one step ahead of the Pinkertons, change your name and make a new start in Wichita.
RE Russian anthem:
Did they just keep the same music, but change the lyrics?
Nah. I want a fair wage and reasonable working conditions. But I also want profits and capital and personal accountability and freedom from overweening government that, in the name of mercy and compassion, actually tyrannizes its citizens.
And I don't believe for an instant that Man is capable of building any but a poor imitation of biblical Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem” by Herb Alpert would make a dandy national anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7lJJDiYyHo
Not a personal or rhetorical accusation.
"But I also want profits and capital and personal accountability and freedom from overweening government that, in the name of mercy and compassion, actually tyrannizes its citizens."
Rightly so. We're on the same page here.
I Vow to Thee My Country or Land of Hope and Glory are my picks. Jerusalem seems a touch modernist to me. Or just stick with God Save the Queen.
It also seems to rip off from another Stalinist patriotic song, “Shiroka Strana, Moya Rodnaya” (Vast Country, My Homeland)
I believe that was the source for the Interval Signal for Radio Moscow. Any shortwave enthusiast will recognize it immediately......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn0pzC5T3GU
I did--I listened to Radio Moscow during the Soviet era.
Vast country, my homeland
Filled with forests, mountains and rivers.
I know of no other country
Where a man would want to breathe.
Both are absolutely beautiful. Thanks for those links.
Cromwell was regarded as a hero to the American revolutionaries though.
you must remember that it was essentially France who created Germany - by invading it and destroying the HRE and creating the German union, it created Germany
Because he defeated the notion of absolute monarchy, the very thing the Revolutionists were fighting as well.
But, like the Jacobins and Napolean a century after him, Cromwell simply substituted one tyranny for another.
I always like to point out that the Polish anthem includes a reference to Napoleon. Poland is one of the few countries where Napoleon is still thought of rather fondly.
Interesting background for that song.
It was introduced in a movie, that plot was basically, a woman from the US had a black kid, and fled the US for the Soviet Union because of racism, and finds a home in the Soviet Union where she meets a circus performer, and they live happily ever after in the Stalinist paradise.
I always liked how Radio Moscow closed with a swinging version of “Moscow Nights”.
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