Star Spangled Banner: Is There A More Difficult National Anthem To Sing?

[Odesio]

@Pensandfeathers

Also, “America the Beautiful” is about how beautiful the country is, and how different each region is. It’s not about fighting and battles. A much better national anthem, IMHO.

The part of the poem typically used in song these days is a nice little travel guide but it doesn’t say much about the American character. Even the poem itself, and I’m assuming the whole thing was sung at one point, includes at least a passing mention of fighting.

O beautiful for heroes prov’d
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

It’s not as graphic as “bombs bursting in air” but there you go. I like the current national anthem myself. We are a nation born from bloody conflict and I don’t mind our anthem reflecting that. (Yeah, I know it was written to commerate Ft. McHenry in 1814 but work with me.)

Marc

[OtakuLoki]

@silenus

I find “O Canada” much harder to sing, but that’s mainly because I don’t know all the words.

Everytime I ask a Canuck to sing their national anthem they seem to end up humming along to “O Tannenbaum.”

[Mellivora_capensis]

Try getting your tongue around this lot.

Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

[Malacandra]

@Mellivora capensis

Try getting your tongue around this lot.

Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Wow, a trilingual National Anthem! :eek:

jjimm, you know very well that hardly anyone ever sings more than one verse of “God Save the Queen” these days, with an option on this verse:

Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign.
May she defend our laws
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
“God save the Queen!”

“Flower of Scotland” isn’t exactly a plea for cross-border harmony either, what with banging on about sending Edward’s army homeward to think again (concerning which, Billy Connolly once observed “and of course, they did think again; they came back in 1745 and beat the shit out of us”).

[Mellivora_capensis]

@Malacandra

Wow, a trilingual National Anthem! :eek:

:eek: indeed. And it gets worse:

The Call of South Africa (Die Stem van Suid-Afrika)
Die Stem van Suid-Afrika is a poem written by CJ Langenhoven in May 1918. The music was composed by the Reverend ML de Villiers in 1921.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation played both God save the King and Die Stem to close their daily broadcasts and the public became familiar with it. It was first sung publicly at the official hoisting of the national flag in Cape Town on 31 May 1928, but it was not until 2 May 1957 that government made the announcement that Die Stem had been accepted as the official national anthem of South Africa. In the same year, government also acquired the copyright and this was confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1959. In 1952, the official English version of the national anthem, The Call of South Africa was accepted for official use.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Methodist mission school teacher. The words of the first stanza were originally written in Xhosa as a hymn. Seven additional stanzas in Xhoza were later added by the poet, Samuel Mqhayi. A Sesotho version was published by Moses Mphahlele in 1942. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was popularised at concerts held in Johannesburg by Reverend JL Dube’s Ohlange Zulu Choir. It became a popular church hymn that was later adopted as an anthem at political meetings. It was sung as an act of defiance during the Apartheid years. The first stanza is generally sung in Xhosa or Zulu followed by the Sesotho version. Apparently there is no standard version or translations of Nkosi and the words vary from place to place and from occasion to occasion. **SA Government Website **

So, depending on the location, you could be looking at 5 (that’s right, five) different languages. Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, English and Afrikaans.

[Scissorjack]

@Cunctator

*God Defend New Zealand * has a few tricky bits in it.

Nah, it’s just “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”: try it at home…

God of Nations, at thy feet
In the bonds of love we meet
Hear our voices, we entreat
God defend New Zealand.

[QuizCustodet]

@jjimm

Couldn’t be worse than verse three of God Save the Queen (if you didn’t know already, it’s sung to the same tune as My country 'tis of thee):Jingoism, monarchism, and xenophobia all in one neat and tidy bundle - and that’s not even taking into account verse five’s “rebellious Scots to crush” - bearing in mind that it’s Scotland’s anthem too.

The third verse could potentially be worse: according to this site , at least, ‘knavish’ is a relatively recent Bowdlerization of the original ‘popish’. If true, it would have added inciting religious hatred to the unholy trinity above. Don’t have a reliable source on it, though, so it may not be true.

[jjimm]

I say, another Oxonian! Hello old chap.