Ahhhhh, are you referring to the Nazis? I don’t think it was ever anything official, though I’m sure it ‘fit the nationalist mood’ of the time. I was going to make a joke about how I find it so stirring I almost think that if I’d been a German teen back then it might have swayed me into joining the Hitler Youth! :eek:
I have no idea what the Nazi connection is supposed to be. It is true that Beethoven (not Wagner) was the favored composer of the regime, but I can’t think of any especially prominent use of Ode to Joy. It was most definitely not the national anthem. The lyrics would have made that rather awkward politically.
I clearly have a bad memory. Different song, although I still (incorrectly) match the words of the opening line to the German national Anthem to “Ode”.
Huh.
So…Ode to Joy is a Country’s Alan Smithee* option?
*when a movie director wishes to remove credit because they disagree with the final cut, etc., it was typical to use that name in the credits.
I think Kernkraft 400’s Zombie Nation is ready to be used as an anthem.
It was either that, or Don’t Worry, Be Happy, which would mean royalty payments.
Maybe, but I doubt many viewers would have made that connection, or even identified it. I thought it was chosen because it’s also stirring and triumphant, but not as overfamiliar as B9. And maybe because no composer’s royalties needed to be paid. And because director Renny Harlin is Finnish.
“Who hates glee? Listen to how that sounds. “Glee” literally means glee.”
Ah, loosely translated from the German “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum”
*
See also 99 Red Balloons Parody - 99 Dead Baboons - YouTube
- Using my very rusty German “Oh Joy, you beautiful spark of the Gods and daughter of heaven, We follow you drunk on your fire, towards your father’s sanctuary in heaven”