If you’ve been around here before, you’re probably aware that I hate most national anthems. I’ll make an exception for South Africa’s “Nkosi Sikeleli Africa”. For one thing, it features four different languages, and most importantly of all, it’s not a call to arms.

But as South Africa is hosting this year’s World Cup, the organisers have a problem: not enough people know the words to the anthem. So they have started a TV campaign to try and increase awareness. This gives us videos like the one above, which is a pretty cool way to present an anthem.

Factoid: South Africa has no less than nine national languages.

There were red faces galore the other night at the Swiss TV channel SRG during the Germany-Austria Euro 2008 match. Someone had the bright idea of subtitling the national anthems. Unfortunately, that someone was using an outdated lyric book, as the German anthem came with the words, “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber alles… (Germany over all)”. Yep, the infamous first verse which was amputated after the second world war for being too invasive (the anthem has since been reduced to the third verse).

According to Associated Press, “The full anthem was written by poet Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841, and expressed a yearning for unity in a splintered nation.” It was particularly dear to the Nazi’s hearts, who were hurting after the embarrassment of the First World War. The third verse is a call for “unity, justice and liberty for the German fatherland” – an altogether more PC sentiment.

What’s funny is that it is based on a tune by the composer Haydn who was… Austrian (just to add insult to injury).

But I have to ask: if it’s so embarrassing to subtitle national anthems, should we be singing them at all?

If you’re a regular reader, you are probably aware that I have come to the conclusion that most anthems are dark, mean-spirited affairs. When they’re not calling for the spilling of blood (Ireland, France), they are stomping on other people (like the infamous sixth verse of “God Save the Queen”). It looks like someone in Florida actually sat down and looked at their state song again, and the result is not pretty.

Their state song, “Swanee River”, is another old Tin Pan Alley concoction (yup, like “Danny Boy”) written by someone who had never seen the river, misspelled its name (on maps it’s clearly written Suwanee River) and simply imagined a “darkie” far from home longing for the “de old plantation”.

ll de world am sad and dreary,
Ebry where I roam,
Oh! darkies how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home

Like any song that you heard as a child, some people still like “Swanee River”, warts and all, and are pushing for a simple re-write of the lyrics. But as far as keeping it as a state song, I know which way my vote would go. As local blogger Gregory Lewis says, there are better choices – notably something written by a Floridian!

Check what some locals have to say here. Incidentally, I have now introduced anthems as a category all its own. Check the link above.

I always thought that national anthems were ancient texts passed down from generation to generation and sung with pride. As the recent news in the UK has shown, they can still be works in progress. And now Spain is at it, struggling to find lyrics that fit the national psyche. There is a simple reason for this: until now, the Spanish national anthem had no words.

A competition was opened some time ago, with 7000 people sending in their proposals. “Spain is a country with cheerful people who sing at any opportunity, so why shouldn’t they be able to sing the words of a national anthem?” says Alejandro Blanco, the president of Spain’s Olympic Committee and the man behind the scheme.

But they have quite a job, as the lyrics will have to satisfy patriots and Basques, Catholics and supporters of Franco. If they could just stay away from the usual bloodthirsty drivel we have in other countries, they could maybe come away with one of the better national anthems. Look out for it at the next match of the Spanish football team.

Maybe I should start a tag just for national anthems. They seem to be be regularly in the news. The BBC reports that there are moves to rewrite some of the lyrics to the UK’s “God Save the Queen”. I must admit that I don’t sing it much myself, so I never noticed that there was a sixth verse. And that verse is a trifle, uh, controversial for a national anthem. I don’t know any other anthem that call for the defeat of one of its own peoples!

The sixth verse is one in which the rebellious Scots are called on to be “crushed”. Check it out:

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!

Lord Goldsmith is currently advising Prime Minister Gordon Brown on citizenship (already, what does that mean?) and mentioned that several people had raised the issue. I’m not surprised! If I was Scots, I’d be pretty angry to have that in the national anthem. According to the BBC, Lord Goldsmith said, “The review is about different ways of sharing our tradition and national identity… What we have to look at is different ways of saying what it is that links the country together.” Um, is that a euphemism or what?

National anthems are, on the whole, a bloodthirsty genre. It’s funny that while debate rages around violent or pornographic songs and video games, we still stand up to shout (I can hardly say sing) encouragements to kill, seek revenge, conquer and ethnically cleanse. If you think I’m exaggerating, I invite you to check the anthems of, say, Ireland and France. So it is all the more surprising that in the middle of a presidential election campaign, one candidate says that he will re-write the French national anthem…

The candidate is none other than José Bové, the French farmer leader who was jailed for thrashing a McDonald’s on one occasion and a genetically-modified crop on another. Nationalistic themes are strong in the current French election. So it’s nice to think that someone has actually read the lyrics to the “Marseillaise” and thought about what they mean (and imply in this day and age). So if he is elected, Bové promises to organise a competition to find more suitable lyrics for the rousing anthem.
We wish Monsieur Bové bonne chance and wish others had his eye for naff lyrics.

Check the “Marseillaise” here (for more anthems, try the lyric search box on the right). Francophiles might remember when Serge Gainsbourg created a scandal by doing an offhand reggae version called, “Aux armes, etc“.