Canadian Anthem

[virphen]

It's only the fans who sing that that, the anthem played before games is "God Save the Queen". It's like saying "Vindaloo" or "Three Lions" is an anthem.

How is that different to the others you mentioned? It's GSTQ played before any game involving either England or a combined UK side that I've ever noted.

[RuleBritannia]

It's only the fans who sing that that, the anthem played before games is "God Save the Queen". It's like saying "Vindaloo" or "Three Lions" is an anthem.

How is that different to the others you mentioned? It's GSTQ played before any game involving either England or a combined UK side that I've ever noted.

"Jerusalem" is played before test cricket matches and "Land of Hope and Glory" is used at the Commonwelth Games.

Rule, Britannia! isn't used at any because the great lord isn't mentioned.

[normal]

The Norwegian national anthem is also stuffed with a bit of god. Even though we have a nice secular country it's still there.

[Reverend Blair]

I think we should just add a verse for each of the provinces and territories and have this as the Canadian Anthem:

[Loki_999]

I spent some time in Scotland quite a few years ago, and regularly at the end of the night after a few drinks there would quite often be a raucous rendition of a song.... something like rose of scotland.... its annoying, i cant remember the details. Anyway, being in Englishman surrounded by Scots i always felt it best to join in as best i could because the national pride and jingoism in the place was off the scale! Still, felt pretty much like a national anthem... any Scots know what this is?

[GoodSmeagol]

You're lucky. My homeland is cursed with two official anthems.

God Defend New Zealand
and
God Save the Queen

Although only the first is ever used on anything other than state occasions.

The music is as bad as the title, in both cases.

I think the close relationship with Canada and New Zealand with England is why and how the god got into the anthem, a variation of 'god save the queen' perhaps.

[Animavore]

No God in the Irish national anthem.

Soldiers are we
whose lives are pledged to Ireland;
Some have come
from a land beyond the wave.
Sworn to be free,
No more our ancient sire land
Shall shelter the despot or the slave.
Tonight we man the gap of danger
In Erin's cause, come woe or weal
'Mid cannons' roar and rifles peal,
We'll chant a soldier's song.

[Jumbo]

England has 1 official national anthem and 3 semi-official anthems.

God Save the Queen (King)
Jerusalem
Rule, Britannia!
Land of Hope and Glory


Rule, Britannia! is the only one that doesn't have god in it, hence my user name.

England has no official anthems. None of the home nations do. All are merely traditional songs and none have been declared official anthems.

My favourite national anthem lyrics:

"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."

Damn Scots!!!

(More wrong with that then a Ken Ham speech.)

This was not actually in the UK national anthem. It appeared in the 1700s (1750s or so) before the widespread adoption of it as an anthem (1780s) and was rather unpopular generally. It did not appear in the common versions of the anthem in print after the songs general adoption as the UK national anthem.

[lordshipmayhem]

As I recall, the last time the national anthem was majorly changed, we kind of had to rely on the mythical magical mystery man for national security. We certainly didn't consider the undermanned, piss-pauvre equipped Canadian Armed Forces to be in a position to guard us.

It was the late 1970's. The Armed Forces were a shadow in terms of manpower, the troops facing our most likely enemy (the Soviet Union) were Inuit militia forces called the Rangers armed with surplus World War II .303 Lee-Enfields, ball caps with the Ranger logo on them, and orders in the event of invasion to get the hell out of the area so as to tell someone about it. (They may have also gotten neato sweatshirts, not that those would have stopped a round from a Kalashnikov.) No tanks anywhere for thousands of miles - and those belonged to European NATO countries, and were in a training facility a few miles north of the US/Canadian border, nowhere near the Northwest Territories. We had one base, located on Ellesmere Island, that was (1) showing the flag and (2) listening in to worldwide communications. I'm assured they had at least one .303, mostly for protection against marauding polar bears. The firefighting force consisted of the runway snowplows, which had instructions to smother the fire in snow.

The Air Force had 1950's-era F-101 Voodoo fighters with air-to-air missiles - no guns - and located in northern Alberta and Quebec. It would take them a significant quantity of time to intercept any Soviet aircraft coming in from the Arctic Circle. Our ground attack aircraft were single engined F-104 Starfighters, originally designed as interceptors and as a result highly unsuited to the ground-attack role, and given the knickname "widowmakers" by the West German pilots, whose country in a fit of bureaucratic insanity had them using the same unsuitable weapons platform for the same idiotic purpose. The Starfighters were mostly in Europe, so anyone invading Canada wouldn't have to worry about that threat (threat mostly to the pilot...). We did have some more modern F-5 fighters... in storage in CFB Borden, north of Toronto. In the event of war with the Warsaw Pact they were to be sent to Norway with a brigade group, but where we were to get the troops for this brigade from and where we'd find pilots to fly the F-5's were open questions nobody ever bothered to answer the inquiring public.

Seen in that light, the line, "God keep our land/Glorious and free!" is fitting, as we certainly couldn't count on our underequipped, underpaid, understrength military to help us. I have no doubt they'd have behaved professionally, but there's not much they could have done.

[Reverend Blair]

Well, it's a stupid line to the stupid song, but I'd rather have a government that under-equips the military than these war-mongering, Jesus-sucking, John Wayne impersonators that we've got in power right now, lordshipmayhem.

Besides, what were we supposed to do? The Cold war was always between the US and Russia. For most of it we had a population of under 30 million and couldn't support anything that could realistically protect us against either of them.

[GoodSmeagol]

"Copied to HD"

HAHAHA Brilliant, the lesser of 2 evils...

[Mantisdreamz]

Watching the closing ceremonies just now.

The anthem is pretty bad and what's even worse was that song "I believe", I mean that girl... Nikki *nottoosure* is a great singer, but that song...

Well, this might sound REALLY bad... but, I was a bit irked about the announcing in the ceremonies, etc. Why were they speaking French first and then English? It pissed me off. The majority of Canada speaks English... it just seemed like they were trying to overcompensate. Maybe that is petty of me.

[virphen]

I think French is the official Olympic language Mantis, so it was nothing to do with Canada. Could be wrong though.

[MissingNo.]

Watching the closing ceremonies just now.

The anthem is pretty bad and what's even worse was that song "I believe", I mean that girl... Nikki *nottoosure* is a great singer, but that song...

Well, this might sound REALLY bad... but, I was a bit irked about the announcing in the ceremonies, etc. Why were they speaking French first and then English? It pissed me off. The majority of Canada speaks English... it just seemed like they were trying to overcompensate. Maybe that is petty of me.

I also heard they got Avril Lavigne and Nickleback to perform during the closing ceremony. Way to showcase the best of Canadian music, Olympics.

[Mantisdreamz]

I think French is the official Olympic language Mantis, so it was nothing to do with Canada. Could be wrong though.

Oh If that's the case than let's just say I'll feel like quite the idiot.... lol

I still can't believe how quickly they came and went.