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Do you give a toss about your national anthem?
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How important is your national anthem?

I don't give a toss about it.

38%

[ 15 ]

I feel a certain pride when I hear (even though I don't know all the lyrics).

17%

[ 7 ]

I don't think much about it, but if I ever heard any knavish foreigners mocking it I'd do my nut!

15%

[ 6 ]

It has a very important place in my heart, and it brings me to tears whenever it's played.

28%

[ 11 ]

Total Votes : 39

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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:58 pm Post subject: Do you give a toss about your national anthem?

Well, Americans posting the lyrics to their national anthem on that other thread got me thinking. Thinking, hell, the only part of my national anthem I know is the part that goes "God Save Our Gracious Queen" so I decided to google it up and this is the first time I've ever checked out the words:

Quote:

God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen.

O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter thine enemies,
And make them fall:
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On thee our hopes we fix:
God save us all.

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign:
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the Queen.

I have never sung it in my life, nor been asked (say at school) to sing it. In fact I've rarely heard it all - a good thing really as it has such a boring tune. I don't imagine that many other Brits know the words either, and plenty of Aussies admit that the only line of their anthem that they know is "Advance Australia Fair!" The rest is just white noise.

So, though I must say that I rather like the line in there about frustrating those ghastly foreigners' knavish tricks, I think the Sex Pistols did a much better version of our anthem:'

Quote:

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming

Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need
There's no future, no future,
No future for you

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
'Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid

When there's no future
How can there be sin
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future, your future

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England's dreaming

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you

Some countries seem to get more excited about this kind of stuff than others. I remember having to stand to attention at kids summer camps in Korea when they played their bloody anthem. Rolling Eyes

Why on earth do you need to play the national anthem at a kid's camp? And in China once a week we all had to troop outside while the played music and raised the flag. As a Brit, this was all a bit over the top for my liking. Flags and anthems, why do you need them at school or at sporting events? Seems a load of bollocks to me.

So, do you give a toss about your anthem?

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject:

Here is what Flanders and Swann had to say about it:

Quote:

A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

You know, it's a curious thing, I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but England hasn't really got a national song, you know, just for England; there's plenty for Great Britain. That's quite different. You have to be very careful how you use these terms, too. The rule is: if we've done anything good, it's "another triumph for Great Britain" and if we haven't, it's "England loses again". Have you noticed that?
All the others, they've got songs about their countries, you know, the Scots, like "Scotland for aye" (or for "me" as it should more properly be). And the Welsh and the Irish have got songs saying how marvelous they are and making rude remarks about the English in their own languages. In the case of the Welsh I think this is the pot calling the saucepan "bach".
What English national song have we got? "Jerusalem" . . . "There'll always be an England". Well, that's not saying much, is it? I mean, there'll always be a North Pole, if some dangerous clown doesn't go and melt it.
I think that the reason for this is that in the old days - you know, the good old days when I was a boy - people didn't, we didn't bother in England about nationalism. I mean, nationalism was on its way out. We'd got pretty well everything we wanted and we didn't go around saying how marvelous we were - everybody knew that - any more than we bothered to put our names on our stamps. I mean, there's only two kinds of stamps: English stamps in sets at the beginning of the album, and foreign stamps all mixed at the other end. Any gibbon could tell you that.
But nowadays nationalism is on the up and up and everybody has a national song but us. The Americans have national songs, like "My country 'tis of thee", which they sing to the tune of "God save the Queen", I may say, and which together with their long range forecasting of our weather I find hard to forgive. Yes, and the Germans - and whatever you say about the Germans (and who doesn't) - what a marvelous song that was: "German, German overalls". Now there's a song.
Well, the moment has come, and none too soon; we have a song here which, I think, fills this long-felt want and I hope that all true-born English men and women in our audience will join in the last chorus. And if you don't have the good fortune to be English true-born, or a man, or a woman, I hope you'll join in as an ordinary mark of simple decent respect. This song starts with, I think, a very typical English understatement.

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

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

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

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now out contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen, or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice,
And worth any other at double the price

Ah, iechyd da

The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can
And little and dark, more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp in his hat
And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much
Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood.

And all the world over, each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest.

It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,
And the flower of the English are Donald (Michael)
Donald (Michael) and Me!

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:15 pm Post subject:

You are not asking the right question.

And that is this:

Quote:

Should we respect those who do give a toss about their national anthem?

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:17 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

You are not asking the right question.

And that is this:

Quote:

Should we respect those who do give a toss about their national anthem?

Hehe. And my answer would be "abso-bloody-lutely not!"

OK, I do care about others' feelings and wouldn't openly disrespect their anthem (unless I thought they were a complete prat) but inside my head I'd be going: Rolling Eyes

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject:

Quote:

but inside my head I'd be going:

As long as it stays inside your head it isn't a problem. It's behavior that counts.

I'm reminded of that post last month, around Peppero Day, from a poster who was outraged that Koreans (who were not involved in any way in WWI) didn't celebrate Armistice Day or whatever the different countries call it.

Playing the national anthem before a sporting event is really just part of the ceremonial stuff that goes on. Most of the time, people just wait it out. It's when something like the rude behavior of the other day occurs that the anthem becomes something more than 'just a song' (and the flag is not just a fashion accessory). There are times, like the Fourth of July or the burial of a former soldier, that the anthem takes on its real meaning for me.

I'm not the only American who associates the anthem with soldiers. Maybe it's kind of strange, but the most emotional moment for me at my dad's funeral was meeting the old gentleman in his uniform who attended even though he had never met my dad. He said he attended all the funerals to pay his respects to his brothers in arms from World War II.

I think B_B's defense of that behavior indicates that her cultural heritage is important to her. Why else would she defend it so? It shouldn't be that difficult to accept that others have a different view.

Leonidas

Joined: 24 Nov 2007

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject:

national anthem = nationalism gift wrapped in a song.

The_Eyeball_Kid

Joined: 20 Jun 2007

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

You are not asking the right question.

And that is this:

Quote:

Should we respect those who do give a toss about their national anthem?

No.

Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:20 pm Post subject:

I would not be so passionate about the American national anthem: but it is awesome.

As I described before, Brits will be predisposed against the American national anthem because of its content.

But the American national anthem is poetic.

Quote:

Americans: Herewith an apology of sorts on the 228th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. An American masterwork has come to my attention that puts to shame my gibe at your "hand-me-down high culture" (What is American culture?, November 18. 2003). It is the text of your national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Francis Scott Key's work belongs to the sparse genre of great poems by awful poets (another is "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"). Great stress may concentrate the thoughts of a mediocre versifier, like coal into diamonds, and that is what the Battle of Fort McHenry did for Key in 1814. The familiar text of the first stanza (the only one with artistic merit) is as follows:

Oh, say: Can you see, by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so valiantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say: does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

Essential to the poem's purpose is the address to the second person as well as the ambiguity of the subject. To whom is the command "say" addressed? And to what does the speaker refer? The hearer from whom the poet demands response has watched through an anxious vigil until the dawn, seeking a glimpse of something infinitely precious. Its name, its substantive, is withheld, while the poet describes it only by the actions that make it known. It is "what so proudly we hailed", "whose broad stripes and bright stars" streamed valiantly over the rampart as the poet and his interlocutor watched through the perilous night.

And this object of great admiration could be glimpsed intermittently only by the light of the enemy's munitions, through the glare of rockets and the flash of exploding bombs: these, the missiles of the foe, gave proof through the night that the United States flag - at last the object is named - was still there.

But now the first light of the dawn has come. The bombardment has ceased. The poet demands that the listener say whether, in the dim sunrise, he still can see the flag above the ramparts. It is a fearsome moment; the hearer has watched through the night to see if the US position has held or fallen; in a few moments he will see in the first light of day whether the flag is still there. All the fears of the nightly vigil are concentrated in those few moments of anticipation. More than that: the hopes and fears of generations hang upon what the listener will espy as day breaks, as the poet demands an answer.

And then the poet repeats the injunction "Say!" and reverses the question: the flag, the object kept in suspense, no longer is the object of the poem; instead the object is the reaction of the hearer himself. The poet no longer asks whether the flag is still flying, but whether it yet flies over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. The question refers not to the battle at hand, but to the destiny of the country. The uncertainty of the initial question is thrown back upon the hearer: is America still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? The subject no longer is the flag, and the battle no longer is the bombardment of Fort McHenry: the subject is the hearer, and the battle rages within the hearer's soul. That is why the poet withheld the name of the subject at the outset. By forcing the hearer to consider what the subject may have been, he prepared the ground for a grand transposition of subject, namely to the hearer himself.

The fearful vigil through the nocturnal bombardment, the fleeting view of the national colors, the moment of truth in the gathering light of dawn - these are a metaphor for the national condition. Key addresses the second "Say!" to all generations of Americans: Are you still brave enough to be free? Your national existence, warns the poet, will be a long vigil, in which America's nature will be glimpsed sporadically in the reflection of enemy attacks.

With this prophetic gesture, Key's inspiration falls exhausted. The remaining three stanzas are mawkish ("Then conquer we must/When our cause it is just/And this be our motto/In God is our trust"), although I rather like the bit about "their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution".

Notwithstanding the weak stanzas that follow, it is a great poem. A great poem grabs you by the throat; that is, it grabs you, you personally, and makes your reaction the implicit subject of the poem. That is why the second-person address in poetry entails such power and such risks.

Consider one of the most ancient examples of the second person in poetry, Simonides' epitaph for the 300 Spartans who held the pass against the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC. "O passer-by: tell the men of Lacedaemon that we died doing our duty," their monument said. The Spartans fought to the last man to win time for the Greeks, and the poignancy of the epitaph is that these dead men must ask a passer-by to bring the news to their homeland. The reader of these lines figuratively becomes the messenger.

John Donne's familiar "Ask not for whom the bell tolls/It tolls for thee" uses second person to speak of death; it is not death in general, but your very own personal death of which the poet speaks.

To do this sort of thing, the poet must abnegate himself on behalf of the hearer. The poet is S T Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner", who abnegates himself in order to tell a tale that will stir the soul of the hearer. The poet must possess the Mariner's "glittering eye" such that the passer-by will stop and hear him out. With his modest gifts, Francis Scott Key accomplished a marvelous transposition of poetic subject.

The moderns withdraw into their own mental game, and tease the reader for missing the in-jokes. Walt Whitman's onanistic "Song of Myself", beloved of highbrow critics such as Harold Bloom, to me seems merely embarrassing. People who incessantly talk about themselves become tiresome, even clever ones like James Joyce. One prefers the company of people who conduct a real conversation. The same applies to poetry. Key, at least for one remarkable stanza, shows himself a real poet; Whitman by contrast produced self-obsessed blather.

Americans once knew what high culture was, even if they had little high culture of their own. If the ordinary schoolchild memorizes the verse of the best poets, learning the classic devices of what used to be called rhetoric, great occasions will wring from the heart of a quite pedestrian versifier a poem worthy of Pegasus. Such was the Battle of Fort McHenry, or the mustering of Union troops observed by Julia Ward Howe, authoress of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".

One wonders whether today's Americans, who hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" before baseball games and suchlike, absorb its meaning. Francis Scott Key's question remains open. America's national colors are the same, but do they wave over a brave and free people?

Justin Hale

Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject:

Kuros wrote:

I would not be so passionate about the American national anthem: but it is awesome.

As I described before, Brits will be predisposed against the American national anthem because of its content.

You're overemphasizing that. Losing a war against your own subjects - and particularly so when the British Empire in 1921 covered 25% of the globe, having basically ruled the world from Elizabeth I to World War One - isn't the cause of a national inferiority complex. The chief constituents of Britishness, British patriotism are the break with Rome, the wars against Napoleon and previous European foes, Empire, and the Battle of Britain in 1940. The American Revolution is a monumental chapter in your history but not in Britain's.

I feel a certain pride when I hear (even though I don't know all the lyrics) was my vote and I completely agree about Koreans and their national anthem at camps and district meetings. If it wasn't for the British and the Americans, such an anthem and flag would the Japanese one and it won't do anyone any harm to remember that.

Mosley

Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:26 pm Post subject:

When I think of the ultimate Brit patriotic song I think of "Rule Britannia", especially as performed at the Last Night of the Proms. Some national anthems can sound quite stirring...until you think of the regime it represents(e.g. the old Soviet anthem). About 10 yrs. ago, a high school in Hiroshima found itself in a bind. The principal insisted that the Kimigayo(Japanese anthem) be played and the flag displayed at the grad ceremony. Half of the faculty was bitterly opposed and the principal ended up killing himself over the controversy.The national government's reaction? It ended up making both the flag and anthem OFFICIAL and thus required by law to be used.

Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:30 pm Post subject:

Justin Hale wrote:

The American Revolution is a monumental chapter in your history but not in Britain's.

The bombing of Fort McHenry was during the War of 1812.

Justin Hale

Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:43 pm Post subject:

Kuros wrote:

Justin Hale wrote:

The American Revolution is a monumental chapter in your history but not in Britain's.

The bombing of Fort McHenry was during the War of 1812.

Silly me, I stand corrected, but that was closely related to war with Napoleon. Not being ruled by the British was (I don't believe it is anymore) central to the American identity, but not being ruled by Napoleon or any continental Catholic despot is (or was) central to the British identity and, like I say, Americans tend to overemphasize the importance of American independence to Britishness and British patriotism. It's hardly discussed and not simply because the outcome was the opposite of what the British fought for. It's not discussed because it's simply not that central. Winning wars against Johnny Foreigners make up Britishness - not losing wars to British or former British subjects. That's why it's always surprising to see it claimed to be the source of a national inferiority complex.

Fishead soup

Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Location: Korea

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:44 pm Post subject: Re: Do you give a toss about your national anthem?

Big_Bird wrote:

Quote:

Some countries seem to get more excited about this kind of stuff than others. I remember having to stand to attention at kids summer camps in Korea when they played their bloody anthem. Rolling Eyes

Ii\I am an Anti-Christ
I am an Anarchist
Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it

I wanna Destroy the passerby
Cause I wanna be an Anarchy
Anarchy in the U.K.
Its comming some time maybe

I'll give the wrong time stop the traffic line
If U K 's dreaming of a shopping scene
Cuz I wanna Anarchy

Is this the PRA
Is this the UTA
Is this the IRA
I thought it was the UK
Or just another country
I wanna be Anarchy
I wanna be an Anarchist
Get pissed DESTROY

I sang this at my last school outing
I got the Christians really pissed off.

ii

loose_ends

Joined: 23 Jul 2007

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:49 pm Post subject:

9-11 was an inside job. who gives a 'toss' about this garbagio.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:43 pm Post subject:

Kuros wrote:

I would not be so passionate about the American national anthem: but it is awesome.

Yes it is.

I don't give a "toss" about the Canadian national song. The fact that my country has a song seems quite odd anyways. I'm always embarrassed for those around me when they stand up and sing a song about a government together. "We stand on guard for thee". Yuck. "God keep our land, glorious and free". Yuck.

Though, when the Oilers were in game 1-7 of the finals against Carolina, I might have drunkenly sung a few bars at the RMT. How silly of me.

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