MPs back calls for English national anthem

[Phil E]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-35296296

What should it be?

MPs have given initial support to the idea of England adopting an official national anthem.

God Save the Queen, the national anthem for the UK as a whole, is currently used for England during most sporting events.

However, Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins believes England needs its own anthem and presented his case in the House of Commons as a ten minute rule motion.

His English National Anthem Bill was adopted by the House.

The idea will be debated again at a second reading on 4 March.

The bill would bestow a responsibility on the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to hold a consultation across the UK, and Mr Perkins suggested there could even be an "X Factor style programme" to select a song.

 

[crossref]

not sure why parliament feel the need to get involved? the RFU can play whatever song they like. It didn't need parliament for SRFU to start playing flower of scotland.

England athletics team at the commonwealth games have previously used Jerusalem and LOHAG.

But which song for rugby ? Jerusalem is defeatist, and too christian. LOHAG is about empire building.. oops.

what about

 

[4eyesbetter]

Jerusalem is defeatist

What's the entire second verse? Scotch mist? It's literally about getting weapons to go and fight for some ill-defined cause. Nothing can beat "let the impure blood of our enemies water our fields", but that's pretty close.

and too christian.

Nonsense. It's the most potentially agnostic hymn ever written. All skeptics need do is insert a question mark at the end of each line of the first verse, and it turns into "Did all this stuff happen? We're not really sure..."

Besides, as Howard Goodall explains, the music is psychologically perfect for the English national character: https://youtu.be/OCvuvw8hiSk?t=7m42s

 

[crossref]

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land

There is a question mark on each line.

To me, it's a paen, mourning for an imaginary England that we don't have, for a missed opportunity, and saying we need to work for a better England.

I don't see it as celebratory at all.

 

[Dickie E]

To me, it's a paen, mourning for an imaginary England that we don't have, for a missed opportunity, and saying we need to work for a better England.

I don't see it as celebratory at all.

Makes it perfect, then.

PS: how's Eddie shaping up?

 

[Pegleg]

As a Welshman I completely support the establishment of an English anthem. Jerusalem, with its dig at the Satanic mills that Blake saw Oxbridge to be, is perfect. It certainly is far better than the UK dirge of an anthem that you currently hijack.

 

[Rushforth]

As a Welshman I completely support the establishment of an English anthem. Jerusalem, with its dig at the Satanic mills that Blake saw Oxbridge to be, is perfect. It certainly is far better than the UK dirge of an anthem that you currently hijack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time#.22Dark_Satanic_Mills.22

No idea where you are pulling Oxbridge from out of your bottom.

Dim diolch.

 

[Camquin]

Surely the only option is "A Song of Patriotic Predjudice' from Flanders and Swan's second revue "At the Drop of Another Hat'

 

[SimonSmith]

This has to be the winner. This, or the Kinks version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRK6U5vIHCs

 

[Pegleg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time#.22Dark_Satanic_Mills.22

No idea where you are pulling Oxbridge from out of your bottom.

Dim diolch.

Well I don't use wki as a reference source. Which helps. Blake was attacking the establishment centres of Oxbridge, the established church etc which he saw as corrupt.

 

[crossref]

Blake was attacking the establishment centres of Oxbridge, the established church etc which he saw as corrupt.

...which is not the sort of sentiment you want to have in a national anthem !

 

[didds]

The okey-cokey.

The worst thing that could happen is there is a competiton for a totally new anthem. then we'll either end up with some jingoistic dirge, or something that sounds as if its been recorded by (random choice) Atomic Kitten.

didds

 

[Phil E]

Well I don't use wki as a reference source. Which helps. Blake was attacking the establishment centres of Oxbridge, the established church etc which he saw as corrupt.

So what is your reference source?
The BBC also go with the industrial revolution angle.

So why did Blake spin a poem about a medieval myth? Probably because England at the time was a place of change and he wasn't entirely happy about the direction it was taking. It was the time of the Industrial Revolution, when factories - the dark Satanic Mills he wrote of - seemed to swallow people up and spit them out broken and mangled. As a nonconformist Christian, Blake looked back on a time when a religious figure could walk in barefoot simplicity on "England's green and pleasant land".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35304508

 

[Rushforth]

Well I don't use wki as a reference source. Which helps. Blake was attacking the establishment centres of Oxbridge, the established church etc which he saw as corrupt.

The best I could find is http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bring-no-spears-to-jerusalem-1347934.html

"People have been reading elaborately foolish things into its modest 16 lines for years."

"The old problem of what Blake meant by "those dark, Satanic mills" has never been resolved. Did he mean real, industrial-revolution mills? Or the universities of Oxford and Cambridge? Or did he mean Protestant churches?"

The only other references I can quickly find are also of people who "think" the line is about Oxbridge, like you.

I've seen Cambridge, it looks nothing like this: https://goo.gl/maps/nEpDBo9iCi82

 

[crossref]

The okey-cokey.

The worst thing that could happen is there is a competiton for a totally new anthem. then we'll either end up with some jingoistic dirge, or something that sounds as if its been recorded by (random choice) Atomic Kitten.

didds

I think a competition to create a new 'official' anthem would be a poor idea, like you I don't trust the result, it's hard to write a song that stirs the soul to order.

Rather wait for serendipity, eventually something will come along that captures the imagination -- like Flower of Scotland did, a folk tune written in 1967 that many years later was unofficially adopted ...

The song has been used as a National Anthem by the Scotland national rugby union team, ever since the winger, Billy Steele, encouraged his team-mates to sing it on the victorious Lions tour of South Africa in 1974.[4] The song was adopted as the pre-game anthem during the deciding match of the 1990 Five Nations Championship between Scotland and England, which Scotland won 13–7 to win the Grand Slam.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_Scotland

It must have been very much the same time that England crowds started to sing Swing Low ...

Seems to me at the moment there are only two real candidates for a rugby anthem -- Swing Low and Jerusalem -- but for one reason or another, neither of them has quite taken hold, as an anthem.

Perhaps something new will come along, the time is ripe...

 

[L'irlandais]

The list of suggestions is pretty long : http://anthem4england.co.uk/anthems/

"Walk on" is about the only one of those suggestions I find stirring.
Is this a little like the Irish National Anthem being replaced with "Ireland's call" for away games ; A very good idea, but still fails to inspire everybody?

 

[crossref]

The list of suggestions is pretty long : http://anthem4england.co.uk/anthems/

"Walk on" is about the only one of those suggestions I find stirring.
Is this a little like the Irish National Anthem being replaced with "Ireland's call" for away games ; A very good idea, but still fails to inspire everybody?

The Ireland rugby team represents the whole island of Ireland, so the ROI National Anthem is not appropriate, and is not the teams anthem.

They do play it at home games, because they are Dublin, if they ever played a home game in Belfast they'd have to play God Save the Queen, so I don't suppose they'll ever play a home game in Belfast!

 

[L'irlandais]

For home games they play both anthems.
Given that God save the Queen was applauded at Croke Park, I don't think anyone at the IRFU would have problems with a home game in Belfast.

Ravenhill has hosted 18 international matches, including pool games in both the 1991 and 1999 Rugby World Cups. The most recent Ireland international played at the stadium was on 24 August 2007 against Italy in a warm-up match for the 2007 Rugby World Cup

When the Ireland Under-19 team played in the IRB World Championships at Ravenhill in April 2007, God Save the Queen wasn't played, only Ireland's Call, and nothing was said about that."

The 2007 Ireland v Italy RWC warm up game anthems can be heard here http://youtu.be/TntE0-fBzyU
Once again only Ireland's Call was played.

On current form, expect to see a good few Ulster players in the 6 nations squad.

 

[L'irlandais]

...if they ever played a home game in Belfast they'd have to play God Save the Queen, so I don't suppose they'll ever play a home game in Belfast!

To be honest, more a question of revenue for the IRFU in my view. Nobody felt obliged to play God save the Queen there for those recent matches. Kingspan Stadium (formerly known as Ravenhill) has a capacity of just over 18 thousand, while the Aviva Stadium has a capacity for 51,700 spectators (all seated).

 

[crossref]

I guess we could summarise by saying that the anthem of the Ireland rugby team is Ireland's Call, and it's not really clear why they sometimes also play the anthem of one of the countries involved, but never the other.

During the troubles wasn't it the case that England didn't get to have any anthem played when away in Dublin, as God Save the Queen was considered too inflammatory ?