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National Anthems

I refuse to stand for our national anthem, which makes me very popular.

I am not about to call on some mythical sky-fairy to defend the country.
 
Axxman300 said:
The Star Spangled Banner is the perfect national anthem for the United States. It's music is from an old English drinking/pub song, with lyrics written by a lawyer (from a slave-owning family), about getting your butt kicked, standing back up, and asking, "Is that all you got?". Bonus - Explosions.

The fact that it's really hard to sing in tune, just makes it better.

If we ever replace it, the successors should come from this list:

The Theme to Team America

I Feel Good, by James Brown.

Let's Get It On, by Marvin Gaye.

I think "I Feel Good" would be awesome at Olympic medal ceremonies.
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Given your country's relationship with God, that needs to be what your national anthem is about

How about Jesus Loves Amerika by The Shamen,?
 
Darat said:
That's because most of us only know the first few lines - that's the gods truth - watch any event where they go past that and if they start on the second verse you'll see everyone mumbling!
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Yank here, quoting from memory:

Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour
Long may he reign
May he defend our laws
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the King!
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Yeah, how about that storm in the Sierras, 5 feet of snow and winds ~150mph...

In my world travels I have heard many a national anthem sung in different countries mostly by school kids and I can report as an eye-witness—boring, monotone, every one of them.

I'd love a more modern anthem. I think Born to Run fits the bill. :D
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This was a professional band and I don't consider this rendition "boring"

Striking would be more accurate.

 
Darat said:
That's because most of us only know the first few lines - that's the gods truth - watch any event where they go past that and if they start on the second verse you'll see everyone mumbling!
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I can only bring myself to sing one line.

"May he protect our laws"




The rest, I find hypocritical although I don't have too much problem with the next two lines
 
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"Well, Ackshully," is the begrudgers' national anthem

bluesjnr said:
You stick to the, "banning music is European stuff", schtick. I've got the, "rebel song" comprehensively covered. :p
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And thank you for correcting me and the VERY MANY other people who undoubtedly believed me. (Hands? There, you see?) You called it a nitpick, but 'twas more than that: a shirtless* error.

As for Yurrpeans legally banning songs, Jesus, how's that controversial? The Marseillaise has been been in and out of jail several times -- in France. Singing the wrong verse of Deutschland über Alles could get you arrested at one time. (Still today? Dunno.) The Internationale was outlawed for generations all over the place. Thought crimes have an irresistible attraction for Old Countryites; they fear themselves so much.

* I typed "shiftless," but Otto Kreckt changed it, and for once I agree.
 
I admit to laughing every time I hear the line "Home of the brave" in the American anthem.
 
Axxman300 said:
The Star Spangled Banner is the perfect national anthem for the United States. It's music is from an old English drinking/pub song, with lyrics written by a lawyer (from a slave-owning family), about getting your butt kicked, standing back up, and asking, "Is that all you got?". Bonus - Explosions.

The fact that it's really hard to sing in tune, just makes it better.

If we ever replace it, the successors should come from this list:

The Theme to Team America

I Feel Good, by James Brown.

Let's Get It On, by Marvin Gaye.

I think "I Feel Good" would be awesome at Olympic medal ceremonies.
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Nah,

It should be Il triello by Ennio Morricone.

Three men facing eachother waiting for the first one to shoot. How more American can you possibly get?
Besides. No lyrics to be sung, so it can't be butchered by off key singers.

It's perfect, I tell you!
 
sackett said:
Trying to play any anthem past the first verse is futile, and should be treated as a public nuisance. First offense, a warning. Second, misdemeanor and a fine.

Third time, six months confinement in a home for wayward accordionists. That'll teach 'em manners.
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Which is why the official lyrics to the Ankh-Morpork national anthem are along the lines of "Oh, hurrm dah do erm dah hurmley hum...."
 
I didn't start this thread for that kind of stuff

The Atheist said:
I admit to laughing every time I hear the line "Home of the brave" in the American anthem.
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Come now, Athe. That jibe's like a smoked-out cigar butt, of a 10-cent stogie at best. Every American has heard it. Most don't even shrug at it. Me, I find it piteous, the sort of thing the immigrant kids would yell at us from a safe distance when I was growing up. We'd reply, if at all, with something like, "Ya nye smlodnyí!" We shouldn't have, of course. Poor little nationless half-orphans.

There. Now I've replied to you.
 
Sometimes your most accomplished poet was a hopeless drunk but that one drinking song he wrote had some patriotic lines in it, so you make that your anthem. That probably isn't a very accurate description of how the Slovenian anthem came to be, but it's my favourite one.
 
Olmstead said:
Sometimes your most accomplished poet was a hopeless drunk but that one drinking song he wrote had some patriotic lines in it, so you make that your anthem. That probably isn't a very accurate description of how the Slovenian anthem came to be, but it's my favourite one.
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Dunno how easily end rhymes occur in Slovenian, but English verse has been shaped (some say deformed) by that potietic convention.

How many European anthems dispense with end rhyme and revert to older modes? I'd admire to hear Finnish or Swedish national boasts done the good old singers' way!

Now: Let's have an alliterative verse contest! Not skaldic, god forfend, but just Beowulf style, 2 or 3 'literations per line. Yeah, just try it, Mr. Tolkien.
 
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