![]() The melody has often been borrowed and kitted out with new words by other nations, including Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, the USA (where it is known as My Country, ’Tis of Thee or simply America) and several independent German states. Thus was born the world’s oldest national anthem – the Dutch Wilhelmus dates back to the 1570s, but was only officially adopted in 1932 – which has provided the model for many a hymn-like national anthem since. “Confound their politics,/ Frustrate their knavish tricks…” Though of course out of respect for our European friends we wouldn’t dream of singing this now. “Scatter our enemies,/ And make them fall!” the lyrics rage. You get more than a whiff of the pugnacious spirit of the time in the anthem’s second verse, assumed by many to be inspired by the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Thomas Arne, the most successful theatre composer in London, discovered the anonymous God Save the King in this collection and arranged it for performance at Drury Lane – which is why many believe that Arne actually composed the national anthem. ![]() By happy accident a collection of miscellaneous songs with the title Harmonia Anglicana had been published just the year before. As the newspapers reported: “The universal applause it met with, being encored with repeated Huzzas, sufficiently denoted in how just an Abhorrence they hold the arbitrary schemes of our invidious Enemies, and detest the despotick Attempts of Papal power.”Ĭlearly our anthem didn’t seem sober and solemn on that night, or the many other nights through the autumn when it was sung. It helped that the anthem was relatively hot off the press. On September 21 the King’s army under Sir John Cope was defeated at Prestonpans by Jacobite forces led by Bonnie Prince Charlie – the exiled Stuart claimant to the British throne – and the mood in London became fearful yet defiant.Ī stirring musical expression of that defiance hadn’t yet appeared – until one fateful night at the Drury Lane Theatre, when a new song entitled God Save our King (long the watchword of the Royal Navy the correct response was “Long to reign over us” ) was sung on stage by the company. The year was 1745, when the Jacobite rebellion against the Hanoverian dynasty became serious. When God Save the King first stepped onto the stage of history, long before the Coronation of King Charles III, it was at a time of existential danger for the relatively new United Kingdom. However it hasn’t always seemed sober and restrained. It lacks the excitement of the Marseillaise, with its cry of “To Arms, Citizens!” or the lovely poetry of the Bangladeshi anthem, which rhapsodises “In Spring, O mother, the fragrance from your mango groves makes me wild with joy.” The lyrics (see below) are a sober prayer, uttered in stately triple time, with just a touch of excitement at the crescendo which leads from the third line up to the fourth beginning “Send him victorious.” It doesn’t have the jollity of the Italian or quite a few Latin American national anthems, which sound like operatic choruses with new words attached. someone lost some bucks.The British national anthem may be much-loved on its home turf – apart from among die-hard republicans – but it has to be said it’s not exactly exciting. ![]() this is the West man, the pinnacle of civilization. So there we are, golden drones droning in unison. We should integrate ourselves at every level from micro to macro of mind body and spirit, only then we can have integrity as integrity can only be born out of unison and wholeness so integrate and MickeyMize your life.īreaking into multiple buildings, multiple systems in tandem, with not a single red flag going off in this incredibly sensitive system, all in unison, right ? As you have all eyes on elections from every election staff. I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives across America rising up together to say in unison, we demand our liberty.Īs people of one God and of this world, we must stand up and in unison.
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