There is a movement to replace the national anthem of the UK (“God Save the Queen/King”). Possible options:
Any other ideas for UK and US replacement anthems?
Reported for wrong forum. Also, there is no serious movement in the UK to change the national anthem. Although I dare say most people are lukewarm at best towards it if you happened to ask.
EDIT: can’t flag it from Tapatalk. But this is not a GQ topic.
[Moderating]
Indeed it is not. General Questions is for questions with a factual answer. There are a few places where this thread could go, but since music is art, I’ll send it to Cafe Society, our forum for the arts.
Prison Sex by Tool
I’ll go with Phil Ochs’ The Power and the Glory for the US.
"…Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all
Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand…"
Billy Bragg’s A New England.
Hopefully Brexitty types will be moved by the title without wanting to explore the lyrics in too much detail, beyond the lines:
I don’t feel bad about letting you go
I just feel sad about letting you know
If the US collapses into civil chaos then it will also do as a regional anthem for the northeastern states, again, as long as we don’t dwell on the lyrics.
I think Bill Bailey hit the nail on the head with his proposal for a new British anthem.
If that’s the direction you’re going to go, then just go with “This Land is Your Land”. It’s a better song, and everybody already knows it.
Or Billy Connolly.
If this were to become a serious issue, our problem in the UK is words, not music. There are hundreds of rousing and singable melodies, but we’d have trouble finding words the vast majority of us would be comfortable with, if we really thought about it.
But if we want something that celebrates something most of us have in common, in can only be this.
No, the best Bill Bailey candidate is this one.
Or, given the mention of Billy Bragg, this.
They even play it together.
I suggest new lyrics be written to the tune of The Archers.
Surely not. “Dumdedumdedumdedum” has stood the test of time.
(Actually it wouldn’t take much of a change to Jerusalem to make it not England-specific: just change “England’s” to “this our”/“these our”, which fits the scansion; we could even let the USA use it, though perhaps it might sound too much like establishing religion - and as for “green and pleasant”…)
On a related note, Israel is considering making “London Calling” its national anthem.
But seriously, the song most often suggested for an alternate anthem for the US is “America the Beautiful”:
And a good suggestion for any country would be “This is my Song”, though that one’s still in copyright, so I won’t quote the lyrics here.
As far as I understand it, “Jerusalem” is considered a decidedly English, rather than British, song, and is sometimes used as a national anthem for the English team in some of the sports in which the UK’s constituent countries compete separately. That may give it some chance to bbecome national anthem of England in case of a break-up of the UK, but not very appropriate to replace “God Save The Queen” as an all-British anthem.
Those are nice, but none of them can holst a candle to “I Vow to Thee My Country”.
some people tried to get Born to Run to be the official NJ state song until it was pointed out it is not exactly positive towards the place the song is about , calling it a death trap among other things.
My favourite alternate anthem is the Canadian anthem from SCTV:
If we’ve gotta have a new American national anthem (which we don’t) it should be this song:
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody’s gonna mess me around
Hey Satan, paid my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey mama, look at me
I’m on my way to the promised land, whoo!
Are we speaking of the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version of *Jerusalem?
*