To wish we had a different national anthem

[katmeouws]

Just listening to The Marseillaise, which I much prefer to "God Save the King". Cant we have something more appropriate to a 21st century democracy.

TartanGirl1 it's verse 6 and sadly I have heard it sung.

Rule Britannia not appropriate either. “Britons never never shall be slaves” not averse to having/selling slaves though.

The Italian one is so uplifting and cheery you wonder what they do on sombre occasions. Do they have a separate, more solemn one perhaps?

I bloody love the music to Rule Britannia but the lyrics make it unfeasible now.

That's never going to be great!

It's not in the official version but tbh it's not my anthem so I would never sing it and generally tune it out.

It's so miserable, like the soulless strains of Happy Birthday.

It's interesting how so many people are holding up the French anthem as a good example then finding fault with lyrics to various British songs.

Cut the throats of your sons and companions...
May impure blood water our furrows

Not so sure about that.

KimberleyClark I agree. RB would be a very bad choice. Quite apart from the slavery we should be singing about being in harmony with our neighbours overseas, not ruling over them.

Someone needs to commission a new set of words and then a good tune. Perhaps the Poet Laureate could do the words.

@KimberleyClark I remember that on the day and how spine tingling it was. Watched it so many times since and always gets me!
Welsh anthem is the best I do think. But am biased!
I also like the French,Scottish, Irish and Italian anthems.

The Israeli anthem makes me cry it's very sad. I like the American one as a tune. I like the You'll take the high roads and I'll take the low roads and I'll be in Scotland before yeee one too.

As long as they don't do what they did in Turkey. They held a contest to write the lyrics and another to write the music. They didn't bother to check if the winning entries actually fit together. They don't.

TartanGirl1 it is "my" anthem but I refuse to sing it.

Jerusalem is no good, it mentions the Lamb of God. We need a non-Christian anthem. Otherwise it's only applicable to a small part of the population.

I agree the sound of it is appalling. A miserable tune.

Kimya oh dear, that's not good. I would hope we could find a poet and composer who could work together.

I'd love to have a national anthem I could actually sing. Having been a republican since my teens I can't remember ever having done so. A national anthem should be precisely that - national - not a celebration of a privileged elite.

Agree with a PP that Italy's is a belter. The mention of France's and Germany's reminds me of that great scene in Casablanca with the stand-off between those two countries' anthems, with France emerging as the deserving winner.

We need something like that: rousing, that isn't a dirge. To my mind 'Land of hope and glory' and 'Jerusalem' both have their problems from political perspectives. Maybe what's needed isn't looking backward to the old (except maybe Elgar?) but forward to something new.

Makes me cringe at the Olympics, when your own country's anthem should have exactly the opposite effect.

Even the likes of 'Road to the Isles' beats the UK's current efforts by a country mile. Hell, so does 'Bagpuss!'

(Actually, the music in Bagpuss was great. I'll get me coat)!

I love the Scottish anthem and the Welsh one.
I'm Irish.
At the rugby there are 2 sung so as not to cause offence as our national anthem is nationalistic and our Irish rugby team is made up of people from the 4 provinces of Ireland, including Northern Ireland, where players were usually from the Unionist tradition.

“Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set,
Good who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet”

Doesn’t really have a good ring in this day and age …

I quite like Ireland’s Call. Nothing about conquering anyone else, just standing together, shoulder to shoulder.

Imelda May singing 'Amhrán na bhfiann' at the Conor McGregor fight was absolute magic. Mike drop moment for national anthems.

Mic drop *

That line was written because at the time, many English people were being kidnapped from the coasts of southern England by Arab pirates and sold in the the slave markets of North Africa, mainly to other Arabs, although the Turks were partial to blonde girls as well.

The slave trade was not just nasty old white Brits enslaving heroic Africans.

No it isn’t! It’s about Bannockburn, not Culloden! Countries rarely base their anthems around massive defeats. The English didn’t go homeward tae think again after Culloden, they went home victorious (although of course it’s a great simplification to think of Culloden as the Scots vs the English, a lot of each were fighting on each side, though the majority of deaths were Jacobite highlanders).

I like Ireland's Call too but dh, a diehard rugby fan hates it. I've no idea why but suspect it may be that he and his mates decided they didn't like it being "imposed" on them, that there was nothing wrong with Amhrán Na bhFiann ( not that he knew what the lyrics meant- Irish was his least favourite subject in school )

God, obv, not Good