Updating the Anthem.

I’ve always been a keen fan of rugby union, and I always watch as much as I can of the annual Six Nations Championship. That’s a competition between the elite national sides in Europe – England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy. But there’s one thing that bothers me about it: the national anthems.

I’m not a big fan of national anthems anyway because, being something of an internationalist at heart, I find them disturbingly jingoistic. But when it comes to honest competition between nations, I tolerate them. All, that is, except the English one. The other five nations have anthems which are celebrations of the countries and their cultures, but the English have to put up with the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. This is the first verse:

God save our gracious Queen 

Long live our noble Queen 

God save our Queen

Send her victorious

Happy and glorious

Long to reign over us

God save the Queen.

 OK, so here’s my gripe:

Firstly, this has nothing to do with England or English culture. This is an outdated and simpering expression of undying fealty to the monarch.

Secondly, the Queen is not the Queen of England; she’s the Queen of England, Scotland, Wales and part of the island of Ireland.

Thirdly, I’m always tempted to wonder how many of the players – and accompanying members of the crowd – believe in the Judaeo/Christian version of God as implied in the words; and further, how many of them respect and offer up unquestioning allegiance to the monarch as also implied.

Fourthly, the melody is irritatingly tedious and dirge-like. It simply isn’t good enough to move the spirit as most other anthems do.

These sentiments have been expressed by others before me for many years, and it’s often been suggested that English sports teams should adopt the song Jerusalem as their anthem. Here’s the first verse of Jerusalem:

 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 those pine-clad hills

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among the dark satanic mills

OK, I know it’s got a bit of God in it, but at least it’s about England and there’s none of the fatuous ‘King George commands and we obey’ stuff in there. And the melody is a million miles better and more stirring than God Save the Queen.

So why won’t the powers-that-be accede to a change? Have they not noticed that it isn’t the 18^th century any more, and that unquestioning veneration for the monarch and belief in the Jewish God began to decline with the birth of the post-WWII generation? Apparently not, and so England continues to be the only country denied its own national anthem, while the English continue to be kidded that they have the best of them.