The legendary Pop Group is releasing Citizen Zombie, its first album in more than three decades, later this month and is doing its first-ever U.S. tour in March. Guitarist Gareth Sager wrote this amazing essay for magnetmagazine.com. Enjoy.
Never mind … “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie, Dylan’s “With God On Our Side,” Marley’s “Exodus,” the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy In The UK” and ”Forces Of Oppression” by The Pop Group …
Long before these chants against evil oppressors were penned, deep in the bosom of the good folk of Europe and further afield, there were rallying calls to arms. Rallying calls or the basic blues moan of the servant against the master …
National anthems have become the stock soundtrack to events judged to be of national importance, a sort of aural wallpaper that is so familiar to us now that we’re in danger of overlooking what they really are.
And the point is this: National anthems are folk songs pure and simple, and not only that, folk songs that are bellowed out millions of lungs all over the world, with gusto, passion and an earnest commitment that most folk singers could only dream about.
Like all good folk culture, the national anthem is adaptable and co-opted to a multitude of ends: an out-of-tune sing a long before a football match or a call to revolution for the French with the “La Marseillaise.” In the 1970s and ’80s, “Amhran na bhFiann” became a test of subversion and loyalty for the Irish—anyone not standing when it was sung in the inevitable lock-in in London’s Irish pubs risked prompt defenestration.
National anthems are like barometers of the national mood. Forty years ago, refusing to stand in the cinema would have shocked people. By way of contrast, today’s young people are shocked to hear that the national anthem was played in cinemas at all.
Nevertheless a quick tour through some of my favourite anthems will show why their potency endures.
By anyone’s standards, the Welsh national anthem, “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadan” (or “Land Of My Fathers”), must be one of the most stirring songs ever written. But what of these lines in the third verse?
“If the enemy oppresses my camp under his foot,
The old language of the Welsh is alive as ever.
The muse is not hindered by the hideous hand of treason,
Nor is the melodious harp of my country.”
Or verse four of “La Marseillaise.”
“If they fall, our young heroes, the earth will produce new ones”
And the chorus.
“Let the impure blood water our furrows”
Freedom from oppression is one of the great common factors in national anthems, though in both these cases, the melodies also carry extraordinary power. The French anthem acts as a rallying call for the people to march to victory, while the Welsh anthem, written by a harp-playing innkeeper called James James, was designed to get his patrons up and dancing. Inviting people to get out of their heads and into their bodies is a crucial aspect in folk that tends to get lost. Even today, only a corpse could fail to be moved by the sound of 60,000 Welsh voices singing their national anthem before a rugby match.
The German national anthem is an interesting survivor. Today, only the third verse is sung, as the first verse was used by the Nazis. But prior to that, the “Deutschlandlied,” as it was known, was written with a clear view in mind. It originated with the Vormaz revolutionaries in 1848 whose clear aim was to unify Germany and overcome the anti-liberal Kleinstaaterei. Nico, one-time member of the Velvet Underground, performs a wonderful version, singing all the verses on her solo album The End, reclaiming the song for a new generation.
Ireland’s anthem, which translates as “The Soldier’s Song,” has this as the third verse:
“Shall we set the tyrant quaking,
Our camp fires now are burning low?
See in the east a silvery glow
Out yonder waits the Saxon foe.”
“Flower Of Scotland,” the most recent anthem to be introduced to Europe (and a terrible dirge if played too slow), contains these lines:
“When will we see your like again
That fought and died
For your wee bit of hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward’s army
And sent him home
Tae think again.”
In the third verse of the USA anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” we find the words: “Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.”
The lyrics for this anthem were written by an amateur poet after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships in 1814. The tune was taken from a song called “Anacreon In Heaven” composed by an Englishman. However, I feel the theme of resistance comes across loud and proud.
Please note that the Jimi Hendrix version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” so often used as the mood music for the American meltdown caused by the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, the burning of Detroit, etc., became the USA’s unofficial anthem as the straight ’50s morphed into the burnt-out psychedelic ’60s. This version would certainly make it into my top three national anthems.
With the inspiration for many national anthems being English oppression, it is worth pointing out that “God Save the Queen,” lyrically and melodically, is one of the worst anthems in the world.
Here’s a sample of the lyrics first published in a “gentleman’s magazine” of 1745:
“Scatter her enemies, and make them fall,
Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks.”
Seldom heard these days, this lyric seems to be asking god to intervene on the side of the oppressor—rather than with the conquered—and one is tempted to say that this energy-sapping smugness infects the entire song, whether the verse is sung or not.
More honest perhaps to take a leaf out of the Led Zeppelin songbook:
“The hammer of the gods, will drive our ships to new lands/Valhalla we are coming!”
Perhaps we could learn something from the Vikings. My father—an Englishman—asserts that having to sing “God Save the Queen” before a sports match gives England’s opponents the clear advantage, the second the last note of this anthem is sung.
Being of the punk generation, I can say with some confidence that the Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen,” with Johnny Rotten’s “We mean it man“, seemed a mighty fine rewrite that spoke directly to dispirited youth across the UK.
Of course, in the age of self empowerment, everyone should get the chance to select their own anthem for any country.
Many Americans choose “Born in the USA” as a patriotic, contemporary alternative to the “Star Spangled Banner“, not recognizing the bitter irony of the lyrics. I would choose “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron, for a modern USA.
Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life’ sums up Scotland; Russia has to go with Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”; Australia should have Nick Cave’s “Stagger Lee”; England gets the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil”; and Wales and France can keep their existing anthems because as songs, as statements and as rallying calls, they cannot be beaten.
But whatever your choice, it is always important to remember one oft-overlooked tradition: Pay the musicians with whisky, and let them live in the gutter.
