There's a vote been set up at the website for England's Commonwealth Games by the Committee Board of Trustees and it suggests alternatives for the British Royal Dirge that is used as a national anthem for England (Though we currently use Land of Hope and Glory for the Commonwealth games)
Option 1: God Save the Queen. British anthem and hence really nothing to do with England..... Gordon Brown take note: England is not Britain. Apart from that, the tune is about as uninspiring as a tune can be.This really needs pushing, moving away the public perception of England = Britain is already happening on a lot of fronts, but securing an English National Anthem for sporting events will push the difference right into the open.
Option 2: Land of Hope and Glory. British imperialistic Edwardian anthem which gloried in the ever-expanding British Empire (especially in Africa) during the country-collecting activities of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. Irrelevant to England as the 'Land of Hope and Glory' referred to is Britain. Erroneously used in the past as England's victory anthem at previous Commonwealth Games - in our view totally inappropriately. It really does need to change in favour of option 3.
Option 3: Jerusalem. This scores on all fronts. For a start, it actually mentions and is about England. Also, opinion polls have consistently shown it to be by far the nation's favourite choice for an English anthem. The words by William Blake are nothing to do with invading anyone, nor are they disparaging to any of our neighbours - they just embody what a vision of England could be.
Jerusalem really should be England's National Anthem. SO PLEASE DO VOTE FOR IT RIGHT NOW!!!!
If we can get Jerusalem to be accepted as England's Victory Anthem at Delhi in October then it is more likely to be taken up by organisations such as the FA, RFU and the ECB as England's pre-game anthem of choice...
Update: Apparently we can vote as many times as we like.
7 annotations:
I've often said that "God Save the Queen" isn't even a national anthem, it's a monarchial imperial anthem - it says little about our nation. If we ever "lost" our monarchy, GSTQ would be meaningless. Hell, we'll even have to change the wording when we get a King.
I'll vote for Jerusalem. I just hope that the Israelis won't object :-)
The only two songs which really do it are Jerusalem and Swing Low. Interesting that both have this religious element to it as England is not particularly spiritual - hence the game of cricket to induce some sense of this.
Done!!
I've told all my mates as well.
So basically you're telling us to vote for the WI's official anthem :-)
It doesn't matter who uses it, just that we have the chance to claim it as ours via an official route.
QM - I know, my comment was tongue in cheek :-)
Yep, I've voted.
I feel like singing it, now - too much ale, I expect!
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