Most Archaic Anthem?

In My Humble Opinion
1

National anthems often occupy a special place in people’s hearts. Updates tend to be controversial. Yet many were written in the 1700s (or some time ago) and reflect bygone values and countries born of violent revolution. Surprising words are especially prominent in some of the lesser known verses. As an article in The World in 2023 points out, “few nations present their best selves”. (Not The Same Old Songs. Economist’s The World in 2023. Couldn’t find a free link. Sorry.)

The second verse of God Save The King calls upon.God to scatter his enemies, up to their knavish tricks. Others emphasize cutting the heads off invaders, the sound of machine guns, death over defeat and bleeding. Lots of blood. This may be in generous streams (Algeria), pure (Belgium), impure (France) or enough to dye the flag red (Vietnam).

Others tend towards the catastrophic. The first verse of The Marseillaise “contains the charming and apparently bucolic line ‘Do you hear, in the countryside…’. What can the sound be? Cows lowing? The wind in the vine leaves? No: it is ‘the roar of those ferocious soldiers… coming to slit the throats of your women and children.’”

I’m not a fan of Hollywood violence or its glorification. The writers of many of these old national anthems, as a group, seem a little troubled. No doubt life was harsher three centuries ago and less attention was paid to diversity and inspiring innovations.

  1. Is there anything silly, shocking or superfluous in your national anthem, especially in the later verses?

  2. Is it better to maintain tradition, clumsily edit out things now controversial (to some) or just pick a new song?

  3. Which country has the most surprising lyrics?

2

The third verse of the Star-Spangled Banner has that part about killing runaway slaves.

3

Canada has edited the anthem twice in my memory, making it marginally less religious and a little more gender neutral. Being Canada, it was already less jingoistic than most. Canadians are proud but generally recoil from the “We’re number one!” stuff, at least when sober. Just don’t call us Americans, a country many of us are jealous of.

Even the third and fourth verses from the Canadian anthem aren’t that bad. Sure, the rhythm gets dicey. But who wouldn’t want to see gentle maidens rise? Still kinda preachy, but prudence and hypervigilance are probably better than tourniquets, invading zombie armies, pikestafffs or fields fertilized with lymph.

O Canada!
Beneath our shining skies,
May stalwart sons, and gentle maidens rise.
To keep thee steadfast through the years,
From east to western sea,
Our own beloved native land,
Our true north strong and free!

Ruler Supreme!
Who hearest humble prayer,
Hold thy dominion in thy loving care.
Help us to find, Oh God, in thee,
A lasting rich reward.
As waiting for the better day,
We ever stand on guard!

4

How in the name of common sense do you get THAT?

Actually, I can answer my own question–by ignoring the context.

Key knew what all educated Americans knew, but what you apparently do not–that during the Revolutionary War, the British hired mercenaries called Hessians. Thus, “hireling.” And “slave” comes in both for rhyming purposes, and for poetic license. He just mentioned “their blood” of the invaders, so mentioning “the grave” makes perfect sense.

The fact that you think that a writer with a specific aim in mind would suddenly switch gears, and throw in a non-sequitur about slavery, is just mind-boggling.

5

Others have pointed out weird things in anthems.

6

That would be a valid point if the song was about the revolution. It’s not. It’s about the war of 1812, in which the British offered immediate emancipation to any slaves (and their families) that joined their cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner#Francis_Scott_Key’s_lyrics

7

Here is the original article but it is likely paywalled.

8

The Aussie national anthem (Advance Australia Fair) is pretty unobnoxious and suitably fits the bill in all time zones, with the singular exception of the word “girt” smack in the middle of the opening para. No Australian will admit to knowing where the term came from. Presumably it’s an archaic synonym for surrounded or encircled and derived from girth. Lexicographically it is apparently the past participle of gird, which doesn’t help much either. Nobody has ever proposed an alternative wording. The ignominy has rusted on.

The only viable option is to vocalise it as loudly and with as much courage as you can muster and hope any listener doesn’t pick up on the fact it’s a national cringe.

The popular favourite is a folk song about an itinerant and suicidal sheep thief in the days of the Great Shearer’s Strike of 1891 so I guess we should count our blessings.

9

The German anthem has an interesting history. The original lyrics are a three stanza song written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841 called "Das Lied der Deutschen, "The Song of the Germans. Von Fallersleben was a liberal democrat pleading for national unity and civil/democratic rights when Germany still was a hodgepodge of very small to bigger lands that were mostly under aristocratic rule. Liberals like von Fallersleben built the intellectual groundwork for the (in the end failed) revolution of 1848.

This is the context you have to take into account when interpreting the lyrics, but especially the first stanza got reinterpreted as a celebration of German exceptionalism and nationalism, especially by the nazis who only sung the first stanza with the (in)famous opening lines:

Deuschland, Deutschland über alles
Über alles in der Welt

Germany, Germany over everything
Over everything in the world

What von Fallersleben meant was that a unified Germany (which was still a pipe dream in 1841) was the most important goal in the world, but of course soon after the actual (non-democratic) unification of 1871, nationalists took it to mean that Germany was the most important country in the world, which Fallersleben never had in mind.

Like with everything they touched, the nazis ruined this first stanza forever, so that after the Federal Republic of Germany was formed and the song declared the national anthem, only the third stanza was officially used, because this stanza expresses the democratic ideals of the liberals of the pre-1848 revolution and is very suitable for the kind of democracy the FRG wanted to be. The opening lines are:

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland

Unity and law and freedom
For the German fatherland

Now you may ask what the second stanza is about? Well, Fallersleben not only meant it to be a patriotic song, but also a drinking song, so this is what I call the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll stanza:

Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue,
Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang

German women, German loyalty
German wine and German song

Sadly, this stanza also isn’t sung anymore…

To recap, parts (especially the first stanza) of our anthem are problematic because they have been and are still misused, but the official version (third stanza) is a benevolent plea for democratic values. And there are no guns, canons or bloodshed anywhere in it.

10

From a legal standpoint, only one set verse of “O Canada” is the national anthem, so I won’t concern myself with other verses. Since it became the official national anthem in 1980, it has undergone one, very minor change. In 2018, the gendered line “True patriot love in all thy sons command.” was changed to read “…in all of us command.” I personally wish two other changes would be made: I would replace “Our home and native land” with “Our home and cherished land” (as recommended in 1990 by the Toronto City Council along with the aforementioned change that was adopted), as a very large number of Canadians are not native-born. I would also replace “God keep our land…” with something else, as I disapprove of state-sanctioned prayer or invocation of deity. Other than that, AFAIK, “O Canada” is good to go. Regarding the French version, I don’t have a firm position. It does have two references that can be interpreted as religious: “Il sait porter la croix!” (It [your arm] knows how to carry the cross) and “Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,” (And your valour steeped in faith); however, I wonder if these could not be taken as allegorical (I.E., to bear the cross under adversity, not necessarily the cross of Christ, and to have faith in the country, not necessarily in God). I would be interested in other people’s opinions on this last point.

There are people who are horrified at the thought of even some minor changes as described above, dismissing those who would do that as unpatriotic and going against tradition. I think this is a narrow-minded attitude. I’m all for respecting traditions and in fact am against excessive political correctness and virtue signalling. But traditions are human constructs and as such can be flawed, and so should be subject to revision. I see nothing wrong with tweaking the national anthem to make it more reflective of progressive values such as secularism and equality of women.

Regarding the French national anthem, it’s not my call, so am only giving my personal opinion, but I actually like it just as it is. Yes, it’s gory and violent, but I share its sentiment of destroying freedom’s enemies, foreign and domestic. It obviously reflects the French Revolution, and while I don’t agree with everything that was done during that historical event (I.E., with the “Reign of Terror” part of it), I do approve of it in principle and credit it with ridding France of an oppressive political and social system and (eventually) leading to the creation of the democratic France of today. So while it’s up to the French to decide whether or not to retain their current national anthem, I myself like the song very much.

This topic calls to mind the Dutch national anthem, the “Wilhelmus”. It’s a long song basically about how William of Orange, who led the rising of the Netherlands against their Spanish masters, was loyal to the King of Spain, yet when Spain started oppressing the Dutch, he felt he was doing God’s duty to liberate the Dutch and so grudgingly accepts the independence movement. Basically, he’s suffering cognitive dissonance / a conflict of loyalty. Given that the Netherlands are a sovereign nation and have been independent of Spain, I find it singularly odd to have an anthem in which the protagonist feels he needs to justify his having fought for the country’s independence and basically apologize for it. Any Dutch Dopers who would be willing to chime in?

11

The Norwegian National Anthem is only 160 years old and, though the defacto national anthem for most of that time, was only declared so by parliament in 2019. There’s a bit about women raising up in defense of the country as if they were men, a bit about, presumably a different conflict, the men fighting and the women weeping, and there’s a bit about thanking God for protecting the kingdom. Other than that it’s just about how we love this rugged country, how we’ve been doing so since the Viking age, and how we’ve stopped (which has held true since the writing of the song) going to war with each other within Scandinavia.

12

I remember when the anthem was adopted in 1980. We were required to sing it every morning in my secular public school before that, in addition to saying The Lord’s Prayer and attending assemblies including the singing of religious songs such as “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

Before the anthem’s legal adoption I distinctly remember being told “these are the new words” when a phrase was retooled around 1979 just before it was adopted. Since the song is much older, without getting in to the various versions in English and French, I have no trouble analyzing later verses in this thread. In fact, at assemblies we had to sing them all, and the first verse in French.

13

So would I, considering it egregiously replaced one of the “O Ca-na-da” lyrics in either '81 or '82.
I remember, at the time, being totally incensed that they’re trying to godify our anthem.

14

Following the 1992 coup in Sierra Leone the new government attempted to replace the existing national anthem with McFadden & Whitehead’s disco classic, ‘Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now’.

Who was responsible for stoppin’ this from happening is unclear.

15

Really? The OED shows It’s clearly a variation on “gird,” which means “to surround” with the connotation of preparing for battle. The sea surrounds Australia and makes it ready for battle.

“Our home is girt by sea” clearly refers to this.

16

They had a point that the version we sang in school in the 70s did have a lot of repetition, so fixing that was a good idea. But as you say, fixing it by adding in more God was objectionable.

ETA: as to how to fix the fix, I’d say “We keep our land glorious and free”, because that’s ultimately the truth, and the anthem should remind us of that.

17

There was a bit of a hubbub over this back in 1992 at the Albertville, France Winter Olympics.

A 10 year old girl sang “La Marseillaise” at the opening ceremonies, and a lot of people noticed the incongruity of a young girl at the Olympics, which are nominally about mutual understanding between nations, singing about the fields of France running with impure blood.

18

The Maryland state song calls for the overthrow of the federal government.
It literally calls for Maryland to secede from the Union,
Dear mother, burst the tyrant’s chain
Maryland, my Maryland
Virginia should not call in vain
Maryland, my Maryland

19

There’s no longer a Maryland State song, it was dropped last year.

20

Bummer.