Most beautiful national anthem - Israel's Hatikvah?

[Windwalker]

I recently heard Hatikvah for the first time, and was amazed at how beautiful it was, considering that it is a national anthem. Depending on the version, it comes off as a traditional melancholy folk song, or a religious choral piece in the style of Bach. The chorus rising with the line about hope gives me chills, evoking (for me) images of long lines of ragged holocaust survivors streaming in to the Holy Land from all over the world.

You can listen to a few versions here, though these really aren’t the best.

Most anthems I’ve heard are rousing military-style fanfares, but nothing that really gets me like Hatikvah does. There any other hidden anthem gems out there?

[Randy_Seltzer]

I’m with you on this one. I think Hatikva is hard to beat for sheer beauty. Of course, if your criterion is patriotism instead, I’d go with the Marseillaise. Man. I hear that one and I want to go surrender to Germany.

I once played Die Moldau for an Israeli friend of mine, who jumped up and, furious, shouted - “That’s Hatikvah! Who stole our anthem?” I assured him, that the writers of the Hatikva had, in fact borrowed the melody from Smetana.

Although some quick research on Hatikvah suggests that I could have been mistaken. Vltava was written a few years before, but there might not be any connection between them. Hmmm…

Anyway, didn’t Cecil write a column about the Star Spangled Banner’s tune originating from a drinking song? Hm. Oh here it is…
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_011.html

[Paul_in_Qatar]

I would have to go with The Marseillaise. Damn nice song. I like the lyrics of the Mexican Anthem, but not the tune.

[fiddlesticks]

Russia is tops in my book. Makes me want to rise up and repulse the fascist invaders from the Motherland…

[Paul_in_Qatar]

Did they decide on new lyrics yet, or are they still using the Soviet ones?

[matt_mcl]

I’m told that Hatikvah, while beautiful, is so depressing that they use a different song at sporting events. Same goes for Japan’s national anthem “Kimi Ga Yo” (not depressing, but just as, um, stately).

La Marseillaise rocks, but as we discovered in 2003, you can’t really sing it at a peace rally.

I strongly approve of the way that Denmark has a civil anthem that boils down to “Our country is really pretty, with lots of trees” and a royal anthem on the order of “King Christian beat the shit out of a lot of Swedish people so stay the fuck out of our way!”

Then there’s the anthem of Burkina Faso:

Against the humiliating bondage of a thousand years
Rapacity came from afar to subjugate them for a hundred years.
Against the cynical malice in the shape
Of neo-colonialism and its petty local servants.
Many gave in and certain others resisted.
But the frustrations, the successes, the sweat, the blood
Have fortified our courageous people and fertilized its heroic struggle.

I have to say, though, that I like ours the best. Anyone can sing it, you can pick whatever tempo seems appropriate, and it’s got history to it.

[Scuba_Ben]

@matt_mcl

La Marseillaise rocks, but as we discovered in 2003, you can’t really sing it at a peace rally.

Is that any better than this?

@Francis Scott Key

And where is the foe, who so vauntingly swore
That the ravages of war and the battle’s confusion
A country and home should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

[ArrMatey]

I’ve always liked Hatikva, and recently discovered a particularly haunting version of it sung by, of all people, Al Jolson. Really nicely done, and the recording I have of it has all the old pops and hisses. Makes me think about what my grandparents must’ve been feeling when Israel was established.

[panache45]

@matt_mcl

I’m told that Hatikvah, while beautiful, is so depressing that . . .

I’ve heard people say that it’s depressing, simply because it’s in a minor key. But it’s not depressing, it’s moving . . . and totally appropriate for a country that was born out of such pain and hope.

[Made_in_Macau]

The Welsh National Anthem will always win this one. Lyrics, good, - tune, staggering. The ‘Gwlad, Gwlad, Pleidiol wyf I’m Gwlad’ part is sentational to any ear. (I believe it means ‘Wales Wales , My heart belongs to Wales’)
MiM

[Puzzler]

@matt_mcl

I’m told that Hatikvah, while beautiful, is so depressing that they use a different song at sporting events.

Not really. Where did you hear it?

[carnivorousplant]

@fiddlesticks

Makes me want to rise up and repulse the fascist invaders from the Motherland…

Just don’t get taken prisoner.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Paul in Saudi

Did they decide on new lyrics yet, or are they still using the Soviet ones?

New ones. Can’t call the Soviet Union “inviolable” anymore, can we?

It has my vote too, sorry.

“Kimigayo” is so short they *have * to play it slow. That can’t help making it depressing.

[carnivorousplant]

I had it as a ring tone for Mrs. Plant’s calls to the Husband Location Device, but I couldn’t hear the damn thing when it went off in my pocket.
Which might not be a bad thing, but I verge on digression.

[Kythereia]

O Canada, your anthem is the best,
Even if all the teenage boys at school
Snicker du-u-ring the Fre-e-ench line
Where we do sing “car ton bras”…

(God, the meter there was terrible. May Calixa Lavallée forgive me.)

[E.Thorp]

I’m a fan of the polyphonic, somewhat dissonant Corsican national anthem.

[Spavined_Gelding]

Finlandia, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Here is a YourTube version.

[Elenfair]

The Welsh national anthem is one of the prettiest, I agree – melodically and for the color of the lyrics. Hatikva is way up there too, of course. I have a soft spot for the Welsh one, but that’s entirely for patriotic reasons.

English lyrics (translated) for the long version:

The land of my fathers is dear to me,
Old land where the minstrels are honoured and free;
Its warring defenders so gallant and brave,
For freedom their life’s blood they gave.

Home, home, true am I to home,
While seas secure the land so pure,
O may the old language endure.

Old land of the mountains, the Eden of bards,
Each gorge and each valley a loveliness guards;
Through love of my country, charmed voices will be
Its streams, and its rivers, to me.

Though foemen have trampled my land 'neath their feet,
The language of Cambria still knows no retreat;
The muse is not vanquished by traitor’s fell hand,
Nor silenced the harp of my land.
If you want to learn the welsh lyrics, I highly recommend going for the humorous english homophone version. It approximates the sound of the welsh words (no, not exactly):

My hen laid a haddock, one hand oiled a flea,
Glad farts and centurions threw dogs in the sea,
I could stew a hare here and brandish Dan's flan,
Don's ruddy bog's blocked up with sand.

Dad! Dad! Why don't you oil Auntie Glad?
Can whores appear in beer bottle pies,
O butter the hens as they fly! 

And last but not least: a link to a midi of the anthem…

[Szlater]

I think South Africa’s anthem (Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika) deserves a mention and it’s verses contain 5 languages (isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English).

[auRa]

@Spavined Gelding

Finlandia, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Here is a YourTube version.

“Finlandia”, while a beautiful song, isn’t the national anthem of Finland. That would be “Maamme” (Our Land), which can be heard as a choral version here (although it’s a pretty cheesy video).

However, the national anthem of Biafra was set to the tune of Finlandia, so it IS a national anthem, just not ours.