After hearing a few great anthems recently it bought home the fact that the unmelodic ‘Advance Australia Fair’ is purely and simply droll. It’s just not shaping up to some fine anthems on the world stage.

“Australians all let us rejoice
for we are young and free
we've golden soil and wealth for toil,
our home is girt by sea”

I don’t know about you, but I have never seen ‘golden soil’ in my 36 years here. There’s lots of ‘red’ soil and I’ve occasioned the odd ‘golden’ beach. Ok ok, I know it’s a metaphor because ‘fertile’ didn’t fit. But what about Toil and girt? Now there’s a couple of words you hear every day in the office. Not! It’s time for an overhaul to something a little more representative.

I’m quite partial to a song written by an ex Seeker Bruce Woodley. It’s got everything an anthem should. It makes you feel proud and you can sing it loud.

“We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come,
we share a dream,
And sing with one voice,
I am, you are, we are Australian.”
Full song here. Take a look, it's very good

The Star Spangled Banner is up there in there in my top ten. Even the Kiwi anthem brings a tear, particularly the Maori version. The Irish belt theirs out in fine proud voice.

How do you feel about yours?

Anthems of the Nations of the World

I have yet to meet someone who hates their National Anthem ....

However the Indian national anthem ,'Jana Gana Mana...' is actually addressed to the British Monarch.

So there are a few of us who prefer our National song, Vande Mantaram...(by Bankim Chatterjee)

Heres a brief excerpt (translated) of our National song :

Quote:

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Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

---

Complete text here

It's much better than our national song, Ace, which is about a sheep thief

Our anthem is boring, not stirring at all. The French, US and Brit ones all sound great. Always remember hearing the Irish one sung in the pub at the end of the night if a band was playing, it sounded fantastic. Couldn't imagine singing our in that sort of situation.

The US national anthem is unsingable (unless you have about a three-ocatve range), refers to comparatively obscure events and is not the most melodic thing in the world, to put it kindly. "God Bless America" has it beat a mile, but I guess people would be a bit queasy about a US national anthem written by a Russian emigre originally named Israel Baline.

For my money, the Canadian national anthem's got it all. The only problem is that one automatically comes to expect a face-off after the darned thing is finished.

I think the U.S. national anthem is the best anthem out of all of the ones I know, which is probably no more than four.

I am quite partial to the German National Anthem

(Maybe it's due to the fact that I keep hearing it a lot after a F1 race)

Although I have never heard it in its entirety, the Greek National Anthem must be a contender. The first few verses may be absolutely wonderful, the 50th verse would get you reaching for the gun, the 100th would have you pulling the trigger. Has anybody actually ever heard all 158 verses?

I love the Canadian anthem, especially after ithe words were changed about twenty years ago to take out some of the "we stand on guard"s. I also like the way we usually sing it for big sporting or political events, alternating English and French versions.
The American anthem is, I agree, unsingable for a normal person, but it does sound fine if done right.

I've always said that the Seeker's song makes a much better anthem than our current one. "Advance Australia Fair" is dead boring!

I seem to remember seeing a survey that showed most Americans prefer "America The Beautiful" over the "Star-Spangled Banner". The former is more melodic, meaningful, singable, and pleasant to the ears. While Whitney Houston can sing the current anthem and send chill bumps down your spine, I think Rosanne did irreparable harm to the song.

But in response to the original question, I like almost all national anthems that I have heard.

The best National Anthem? Tough one. Most of them are well beyond awful and in to execrable territory.

The best tune for a National Anthem is not that hard to find, it comes down to a choice of two; either the French national anthem La Marseillaise" or the old Soviet (1917 - 1944) national anthem "The Internationale". Both stir the blood and both are magnificent. Unfortunately the words of the "La Marseillaise" are awful in English translation and the traditional English words to "The Internationale" are even worse. Billy Bragg produced a better set of English lyrics for "The Internationale" a few years ago but they are still pretty poor. I think I would have to go for La Marseillaise".

As I have said at least once before on this Forum I have never forgiven Australia for its national anthem. You could have had Patterson's magnificent "Waltzing Matilda" and instead you have that insipid, wishy-washy, guff in a balloon excuse for a national anthem "Advance Australia fair". Why!

The Americans are nearly as bad. They have had "The Star Spangled whatsit" since 1931, it is racist about both the English in general and the internationally beloved Royal Navy in particular. If only they had waited another nine years they could have had a proper national anthem instead. Woody Guthrie's transcendent Socialist anthem "This land is your land".

Without a doubt the worst national anthem is Britain's own "God save our gracious Queen". Wit and humour fail me at this point, I am sorry. We should probably all sing something along the lines of "we are all subservient little slavies" instead it would be less offensive and more honest.

Well that was the worst, which is the best?

The Soldiers Song is powerful but racist, the kiwi's (in song at least) depend on God to save them too much, O Canada lacks fire. The Scots anthem I discovered is the laughable "Scotland the Brave" and not "Flower of Scotland" as I had thought. Had it been otherwise "Flower of Scotland" would have won outright.

So since my first choice has been disqualified on the grounds that it is not a national anthem. My nomination for best national anthem is the South African "Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika" which not only sounds hauntingly beautiful but has very powerful words as well.

When I was a kid I used to think that "Waltzing Matilda" was the Australian national anthem. I could never quite believe that the anthem was really "God Save The King/Queen". "Matilda" may be a celebration of a thief, but I find it a really attractive tune. "Advance Australia Fair" seems to me to be distinctly unmemorable: I could hear the tune a hundred times and still not remember it.

I don't know many anthems (I'll have to take a look at some of those on Bertho's site), but my favourite must be the Marseillaise. The words are a bit bloodthirsty, and do they still make the children sing the Strophe des enfants about how keen they will be to share their elders' coffins? But I can never hear those opening bars without a thrill.

I like the German anthem, and I can see why they've ditched the first verse of the original ("Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!"). All the same, I wish they'd replaced it with the original second verse (about the inspiring power of German women, wine and song) rather than the off-the-peg rhetoric about unity, justice and freedom.

As for "God save The Queen", it's not only a tune with a simple dignity about it, but it has the great merit of being short (just fourteen bars). That's got to be a big plus when you're at an official ceremony.

Nothing against Queenie but Land of Hope and Glory would have made a more stirring National Anthem.

PS. By the way, how is the limp TT ?

After reading all the opinions on the Australian anthem I'm a little afraid to admit, but I think it's a wonderful melody! Don't know about the text, but the music sounds great. I like the Brazilian, Italian and the German anthem very much too! Really nice tunes. My own country's national anthem is not too bad either, but it's the text that's not making sense at some points.

The Norwegian anthem is quite nice as well. I somehow always expect to see Johann Olav Koss getting a gold medal when I hear it.

I'm going through the anthems via Bertho's link, and these are my verdicts so far:
Djibouti- not too bad.
Afghanistan- awful.
Azerbaijan- quite good.
Iran- terrible.
Iraq- the music is very nice, very cheerful. The words start out well, "land of two rivers", Babylon & Assyria, history radiating with light, and all that, but towards the end of the second verse it turns into a bloodbath: "we alone who possess the anger of the sword", "Advance, bringing terror, to a certain victory", "And each martyr follows in the footsteps of a former martyr", etc. The words wouldn't bother me quite as much if the music wasn't so cheerful!
Micronesia- rather boring.
Mozambique- I think a lot of people on this site will like the words to this one: "Struggling against the bourgeoisie", "the tomb of capitalism", "people who, gun in hand, toppled colonialism". And who is Frelimo? The music is very average.
Qatar- cute tune.
Trinidad and Tobago- Average.
Tuvalu- they seem to really love God and the king. The music is boring.

Okay, that's all I have patience for right now.

As for anthems that I am actually familiar with: the South-African anthem isn't too bad. I agree with Tiel about the words being nice. Problem is that they insist on singing both the new one and the old one all the time, so it ends up being rather long.

However, I am going to be patriotic here and say that I think the Israeli anthem is the most beautiful anthem in the world. The words are haunting (the English translation doesn't even begin to do them justice) and the music, when played correctly, is beautiful. Unlike some anthems, which seem rather arbitrary, this one has a deep meaning. It's the most melancholy anthem I know of. And when it's sung at public ceremonies it really builds to a crescendo- everyone starts out singing really softly, and by the end (and the whole thing is only ten lines) most people are singing as loudly as they can.

Bertho,

The song at the endof your link is quite beautiful, not Matilda but quite beautiful.

snm,

More than a tad of racism in the Israeli anthem don't you think? If the Soldier Song is bad this is worse.

Just for the record, here are the words (awful as they sound in English):

Quote:

---

As long as deep in the heart,

The soul of a Jew yearns,

And towards the East

An eye looks to Zion,



Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope of two thousand years,

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

---

Please point me to the "racist" part, I'm having trouble locating it. *

What's the Soldier Song?


* Trust you to make this thread political.

The translation you present is effectively the same one I am familiar with so we agree on the words.

The fact that it locates 'our' land in someone else's and that it is exclusive rather than inclusive are the principal racist aspects of the song. The Zionist bit may be regarded as racism or not according to personal taste.

Apparently the bloke what wrote the words was British? Is this true?

The Soldier's Song is the Irish National Anthem.

Woody Guthrie: white racist, jingoist ideologue who ENTIRELY OVERLOOKED the mistreatment of First Nations people by rapacious EuroProts who stole a continent from them.

And wot's this "you and me" stuff? Note that he does NOT say "You, me, Jacques, Nigel, Stavros, Horst, Lars and Giuseppe"!!

http://www.arlo.net/lyrics/this-land.shtml

Outrageous.

From you I take this as a ringing endorsement. I am also gladdened that you did not seek to defend "The star thingamy whatsit"

Your not that far off the mark with Guthrie himself though, not a nice man.

Bertho, you ask how we feel about our anthem? I get chills every time I hear the "Star Spangled Bannner" but when the last note dies, I always want to say "Play Ball".

I've listened to a few more of the anthems on Bertho's site. I rather like the Finnish and Swedish.

I was surprised by the Swiss anthem. I thought it was something called "Rufst du, mein Vaterland" which went to the tune of "God Save The Queen."

Hmm, I listened to the Dutch national anthem on the site Bertho referred to and it sounded like some pop song (which it is not supposed to be of course)! I wonder how much the other anthems resemble the original versions...

Quote:

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The fact that it locates 'our' land in someone else's

---

Who are these "someone else's" exactly? The Ottomans? (The anthem was written in the late nineteenth century). There are dozens of anthems that speak of freeing "our" land: from the British, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Belgians etc. So let me see if I got this straight: freedom from European imperialism: good. Freedom from Ottoman imperialism: bad.

Quote:

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exclusive rather than inclusive

---

Why, because it has the word "Jew" in it? Do all those anthems that mention God exclude atheists? What about the many Muslim anthems, many of which mention Allah, despite the fact that there are non-Muslim minorities in those countries?
Why is Israel always held to higher standards than the rest of the world?

Quote:

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The Zionist bit may be regarded as racism or not according to personal taste.

---

The Zionism=racism equation caters to every anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews that has been set forth in the last century and a half, most notably in such magnificent literary forgeries as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Even the UN gave up on that equation eventually, but I see it's still alive and well up in Blackpool. (BTW, the anthem wasn't even written as a Zionist song- it was adopted by the Zionist Congress a few years later).

Whenever I think we've mined the depths of your ignorance regarding Jewish affairs you come out with something new that shocks me even more than anything you've previously posted.

"HaTikvah" is an expression of the dream Jews held for two thousand years in exile, the dream of returning to Israel and becoming a sovereign nation once again. It was this dream, this hope, more than anything, that allowed the Jews to survive as a nation throughout two thousand years of exile and persecution. If expressing this dream in song is "racist" in your eyes, then so be it. Anyone who understands Jewish culture knows that it is not.

P.S- I don't know if Hirsch was British. I always assumed he was East-European, since the music is an Hungarian folk song, but as far as I know he didn't choose the music, so I don't know.

1) With the exception of the SA anthem in what way have I been more complimentary about the words of the other national anthems I have addressed today when compared with that of Israel?

2) None of your arguments in any way refute my first two statements.

3) Your response to my third statement is extremely racist and indeed personal, neither did you read it carefully enough. I do not intend to continue the discussion further. In any case we are far off Bertho's original conception of this thread.