I trust not. Parry, orch. Elgar for most of us.
I’ve often thought of I Vow To Thee My Country, but it stretches the singing range for unpractised singers, especially since it hits the high notes at the end. And the words are a bit melodramatic, reflecting the time of their writing. Jerusalem is much more aspirational, and the England-specific bits can easily be amended.
When the Bear Flag Republic is re-established, I’ll go with CALIFORNIA HERE I COME.
Flanders and Swann solved this problem decades ago
In your dreams.
When Australia actually went with a new national anthem, we choose, by majority vote, a dreary melody, with frankly un-lyrical lyrics.
I always change the lyrics when I sing it:
“God shed her grace on thee
And crown thy good with sisterhood
From sea to shining sea.”
People complain about the tune to God save the Queen, but if it’s played at the right tempo, it’s a lot better than some of the dirges one hears at the Olympics. No one could ever reach a consensus about a replacement anyway and there are a lot more important things to worry about.
“Baby Shark” For either country. No need to change the lyrics either
I’ve often said that, but really I’d go with any patriotic song that didn’t just glorify our military expertise. Granted, the pickings are a little slim…
“holst”. Heh. But the range is impossible for one normal voice to sing. In that respect, it’s even worse than the SSB.
You’ve mixed up the verses. The second one you post begins with the actual fourth verse; but your last 3 lines are from the second verse, and they clash with the rest of the poem. When was the last time any public figure in this country advocated self-control for all citizens?
ATB gets my vote, but it probably wouldn’t get in because of that pesky word “God” in it. The usual suspects would be screaming “THEOCRACY!”
A national anthem that’s a rebuke will never fly. The left floods us with that almost continuously, and their efforts to remedy it only make things worse (see the West Coast, particularly California).
You are saying that like it was a bad thing!
It’s a true enough assessment but on the other hand we didn’t go with a stirring upbeat ditty about shooting other people, or charming old melody with lyrics of a suicidal sheep rustler caught red handed in a class war. :eek:
Next you’ll want us to start wearing hats again so we can take them off and stand for the national anthem. And that’d be just plain unAustralian. 
I have a couple of Old Dart colleagues who think, barring the strong association with an organised group of east London hooligans, that “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” has all the right credentials for an English national anthem.
How about George Carlin’s reworked version?
O famous for her smoggy skies
Insecticided grain
The stripmined mountains’ majesties
Above the asphalt plain
America! America! Man sheds his waste on thee
And hides thy pines with billboard signs
From sea to oily sea!
Just stick with the current anthem, drop the first verse and skip to the second:
Ner ner ner nurrrrr ner-ner, nur nur ner ner ner-ner, god save the queen.
Might have to do something about the last line though.
Yeah, rowrrbazzle, I think those verses are a bit muddled, now that you mention it. I copy-pasted from what Google told me, and who knows where Google got it from. I just wanted to include lyrics because I don’t know how familiar foreigners are with American patriotic songs, and the OP is a Brit, after all.
Yeah, rowrrbazzle, I think those verses are a bit muddled, now that you mention it. I copy-pasted from what Google told me, and who knows where Google got it from. I just wanted to include lyrics because I don’t know how familiar foreigners are with American patriotic songs, and the OP is a Brit, after all.
Of course the UK will change the anthem as soon as Elizabeth dies by replacing “Queen” with “King”, unless of course everyone on the succession list between her and Charlotte predeceases her.
For the US, our anthem sucks. Unsingable by most, too militaristic, honoring a war in which was not exactly a victory. America the Beautiful is a much better tune.
Oh well - could have been worse. We could have gone with the suicidal sheep-stealer. (Nice tune, though).
If someone came up with a Aussie version of 4’33", I would have voted for that.
Phil Ochs, no relation to the NYT Ochs AFAIK, was from Ohio. Damn those rust belters! If we’re going with AMERICA (same tune as Gawd Save The [monarch]) I like the version from the fellow who became America’s top insurance salesman, Charles Ives. Yes, I know that won’t gain widespread popularity. But what is a buoyant alternative? “U-S-A, U-S-A, Kill kill kill! Bomb bomb bomb! U-S-A, U-S-A, Number one! Number one!” That should do.
BTW it was governator Schwarzenegger who oversaw the transition of California from an (R) to a (D) state, swamping the (R) legacies of Nixon, Reagan, Wilson, and Deukmajian. Maybe if Arnie had better writers, things would be different now. California desperately needs a better state anthem than this old fogy.
An anthem should proclaim that its jurisdiction KICKS ASS, right? Rule Brittania! does that for the UK, such as it was. Over There! showed the US spirit of a century ago. What would work now?
OK. The US needs two. “This Land is Your Land” for the liberals. “God Bless the USA” for the conservatives.
Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels imagine an English Republic whose president is an ageless George Formby, and the national anthem is “When I’m Cleaning Windows”. (And instead of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the door-to-door evangelists are Baconians, denying Shakespeare’s authorship).