Seconded. I fell in love with it watching Hunting Red October as a kid. I’ve still got it on my mp3 player, along with several other Red Army choir songs. I’m particularly fond of the Varshavyanka and the “chant des partisans” (sorry, don’t know how you guys call it) as well. Say what you will about the Commies, but they had their crescendos down pat.
In fact, most partisan/anarchist/socialist anthems are really powerful and stirring pieces of music IMO. As a veteran of the Spanish Civil War once said to summarize that war, “We may have lost every single battle, but we had the better songs.”
Too many national anthems just meander and getting quite tiring to listen to, made worse I guess by having to stand and give it some importance.
God Save the Queen, La Marseillaise, The Star-Spangled Banner and the above excepted, they all just seems to go on and on and then suddenly stop. Germany sort of cheats by using someone else’s tune, so they get an honourable mention.
The Soviet National anthem gets my vote; now that’s an anthem to be proud of. I do like the EU one as well, but that’s based on one of Beethoven’s tunes right? And really, when did he ever go wrong?
Unfortunately the Australian National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair is very dull and tedious. Most people I know don’t even know the lyrics and quite frankly, couldn’t care less. This boy-band version is pretty awful and I can’t say that I’ve heard any version I like.
Call me old fashioned, but I’m quite fond of Stars and Stripes Forever. Either by the Master or the Boston Pops. And of course, Chet Atkins is simply amazing.
I recently had occasion to attend Christmas Mass in a Vietnamese congregation (I am neither Catholic nor Vietnamese, but my girlfriend is both). The very last part of the service, the entire congregation rose as one, and sung their hearts out like never before (and they were into the whole thing compared to other English Masses I have been to) and sang with what was clearly the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Whenever I am there at that Church, since I can’t understand a word of the service, I mostly look at the people and try to understand how they must feel about the path their lives have taken, and the role their faith plays in just getting by. I think this is a story that has yet to be told about the Vietnamese population in California, and the US. There is the look of despair of war on almost all the faces, even now. But that is another thread, another time.
I might add that of about 1000 people there, I was the ONLY non-Vietnamese person. After we left, I asked my girlfriend how it was she was the only one there with a non-Vietnamese significant other or even friend willing to share Mass with them. No answer really.
But during the Battle Hymn song, I couldn’t help but ask her - do they know that they are singing an Army battle song from the Civil War. No clear answer there either, but it turns out the lyrics were not simply translated from the original, but in fact composed an unrelated song having to do with the Christmas story in the Bible.
I find the cross (no pun intended) of the Military with the Religious, particularly by that crowd in that venue at that service, with such fervor, to be profoundly mystifying.
As for the OP, give me This Land is Your Land any day any time. Simple, pure, profound, universal.
This was exactly what I came to post. Makes me feel like I was born in the wrong country. But the Star Spangled Banner during the 91’ All Star game in Chicago (while Iraq 1 was going on) reaffirms my allegiance.
