Why doesn't England have a National Anthem?

[itwontletmechoose]

It's frustrating to hear them sing the 'God Save the King' British national anthem. Why doesn't England have its own national anthem instead of singing one which covers all of the union (in theory)?

Further anthem suggestion: how about 'Brave Sir Robin ran away ...'

I think the Union Flag would be much improved by a dragon!

I think the Union Flag would be much improved by a dragon!

Everything is, isn't it?

Everything is much improved by a dragon!

You might want to look up the Welsh Not. An approach taken by English landowners in the 19th and 20th centuries to try and wipe out the Welsh language.

Or the more recent Barnett formula, a “temporary” invention of the 1970s to calculate the funding block for Wales which takes none of our unique circumstances into account.

Abba WTF they are Swedish - it would be like when Sven was England manager having an affair with Ulrika all over again.

The Marcha Real has no words. It has unofficial lyrics, usually piss-takey ones, but no official ones, and never has.

Your Spanish friends cannot be baffled by this.

Swop country for person - but actually Charles had a really deep connection with Kathleen Raine one of the leading authorities on Blake, his Eulogy to her was very touching.

This is a really good piece on Charles and Blake.

”Jerusalem” might not be suitable as a national anthem for a material world, but the words are perfect to summing up what people and therefore the world might become.

https://www.markvernon.com/awakening-in-a-caroline-age-king-charles-william-blake-kathleen-raine

Except the garden of Eden apparently

We absolutely need a new English anthem. Ideally get rid of God Save the King completely but at least let’s have something else for England. I cannot stand for an anthem which has the lyric ‘long to reign over us’. I’d basically be calling myself a ‘subject’ - which I refuse to be. I’d however love to sing ‘Jerusalem’.

Wasn’t that a serpent?

Same thing

It was.

Although there are linguistic links. 'Dragon' comes via French and Latin from the Greek 'drakon', meaning (a large serpent). One Old English term 'drake', as in 'firedrake' and nothing to do with male ducks, comes from the same root. Another Old English word 'wyrm' meant 'serpent' as well as 'dragon'.

This is such a load of nonsense. I've seen Laura Muir described as Scottish on a regular basis, and she has been successful for years. In fact there is a large group of really good Scottish (track and field) athletes at the moment and they are routinely described as Scottish and British.

It might have been the case 20 years ago but it isn't now. Time to get with the times, it's like people constantly harping on about the Winter of Discontent which was back in the 1970s!

I like Jerusalem too and it works well for the Commonwealth Games. If it's not considered inclusive enough on religious grounds someone could write new lyrics but the melody is lovely.

Actually Welsh parents thought their children would do better if they spoke English. But i guess that doesn't fit the narrative.

In any event, people who live in England now have nothing to do with what happened in the 19th century. It really is time to move on and look forward. Yes we should learn from history but we can be hamstrung by it too.

Trust me, the Welsh don’t care what the English sing. Just don’t ask them to sing GSTK.

The words don’t need rewriting, if you understood them you’d realise they were inclusive to all of humanity. - but nothing to do with jingoistic notions.

Parry was a good composer

Speaking as an English person who’s lived in wales for 20 years, you are completely and utterly wrong. The English did try to eradicate the Welsh language. Children were caned for speaking in Welsh and had a wooden plack of shame hung around their necks called the Welsh not.

In Christianity both are linked with Satan at the beginning and end - symbolically interchangeable - do for these purposes - same thing

We’re still held down by the way Welsh funding works too.

In order to look after our disproportionately vulnerable population in incredibly rural areas and to defend and encourage use of the language we have to have less of other things. (Barnett being based on headcount.). No consequential from HS2 etc.

Absolutely, the Welsh NHS is underfunded - the barnet formula screws us over. The population of Wales has much higher percentage of severe illness, and the funds are insufficient to cover this.

I see the responses to my post completely overlook my entire point about "the English" in favour of compounding the blanket statement to make your points.

Well it wasn’t the French who tried to eradicate the Welsh language less than 100 years ago, so I’m not sure I understand what your point is.

Except the garden of Eden apparently

Oh I dunno... gaining the knowledge of good and evil rather than staying blindly obedient to a deity sounds like a jolly good idea to me.