Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ The Anthem

January 20, 2016 • 8:15 am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, “Anthem,” came with an informative sentence:

There’s a debate in the England at the moment about choosing a specific English national anthem. Bafflingly, this is the most popular choice.

I had no idea that the English were debating replacing their old national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” with a new one.  And it was, in fact, David Cameron who supported that suggestion. Below is the Jesus and Mo cartoon, in which Mo comes around to Cameron’s suggestion:2016-01-20

You can read about the song on Wikipedia; it’s based on a short poem published by William Blake in 1808, and its original title was the ungainly “And did those feet in ancient time.” It was set to music in 1916 by William Parry. And it’s religious! More:

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant, travelled to what is now England and visited Glastonbury during his unknown years. The poem’s theme is linked to the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a New Jerusalem. The Christian church in general, and the English Church in particular, has long used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.

In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake implies that a visit by Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the “dark Satanic Mills” of the Industrial Revolution. Blake’s poem asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ’s visit. Thus the poem merely implies that there may, or may not, have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England.

I just can’t imagine a crowd singing this before a soccer match! And did I mention that it’s religious, and also mentions “dark Satanic mills”? Listen for yourself.

“I will not cease from mental flight” indeed!

If they had to choose something by Blake, why not “The Tyger“?

192 thoughts on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ The Anthem”

  1. When the England cricket team are playing at home the singing of “Jerusalem” is part of the per-match build up – usually led by an opera star. Incidentally the new anthem would not replace God Save the Queen – it is England specific not British, because the Scots and the Welsh already have their own anthems.

    1. I suspect that PCC(E) has, like many Americans, trouble with the subtle difference between “England” and “Britain”. 🙂

      2. Many English have a problem with the difference between “Britain” and “England.”

    1. “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” is of course the Welsh anthem, & 19th C… a sort of Welsh “I was Gwlad!” 😉

    2. What happened to ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’? I seem to remember that ringing out at a few rugby games.

      1. That’s purely a rugby union thing. Hence the rest of us wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole for precisely that reason.

          1. Toffs who play Rugby Union sing an old song of enslaved people and a Kiwi just used “soccer” instead of “football”. I think “The World Turned Upside Down” is in order. 🙂

    3. Isn’t Scotland the Brave the unofficial Scottish national anthem? Just as Waltzing Matilda is he unofficial Australian national anthem.

      1. Scotland the Brave used to be used, but Flower of Scotland has edged it out – now used for rugby, soccer and at the Commonwealth Games. Possibly because the lyrics are about beating the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, and the most important thing for Scottish sport is to beat the English.

        1. The problem with Scotland the Brave is that nobody knows the words. That said, it was great as a national anthem as it was basically taking the piss – for example

          “Far off in sunlit places,
          Sad are the Scottish faces,
          Yearning to feel the kiss
          Of sweet Scottish rain.”

          So we were the only country that had a joke song as our national anthem. Just what is needed at international sporting events.

    4. We sang it at school, too. Powerful, millenarian stuff. We had a horrible metalwork teacher called Mills… In fact, EVERYONE sings it, includimg the Women’s Institute.

      It is a measure of the gulf that separates the UK and the US that even an anglophile like PCC(E) doesn’t get the revolutionary content (for Blake, if not the WI or David Cameron).

      Mind you, the Wikipedia entry is stooopid and The Author is also baffled. I’m not. What else would we sing? When I’m Cleaning Windows? (That will also stretch transatlantic comprehension to breaking point…)

  3. “Blake implies that a visit by Jesus would briefly create heaven in England”

    Because there’s such a history of that…

    4. Well, modify the text slightly to reflect England rather then Britain.

      hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoHgSLp19YE

      And by the way, consider replacing the insipid Star Spangled Banner with Columbia the Gem of the Ocean.

      hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wIDXclKtGQ

      Replace xx with tt

      1. While we’re at it, let’s replace the insipid “O Canada” with “The Maple Leaf Forever”.

        1. Actually we used to hear TMLF quite a lot when I was young, before ‘O Canada’ and all that standing on guard. But I think today it would need new words. IAC either one is better than GSTQ which I believe was our official national anthem before OC.

      2. (If you just trim the ‘https://’ from the URL before posting, WordPress automatically reinserts it).

        Agree SSB is insipid (I would’ve said dreary), but IMO Columbia is worse. Far too jaunty and reminds me of Popeye cartoons.

        How about America the Beautiful:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OYYQEHqJ_c
        IIRC it’s got some Goddy bits in the lyrics – what anthem doesn’t? I suppose they could be amended if necessary.

        cr

  5. It’s a good poem and a good song – far superior poetically & musically to that boring dirge ‘God save our gracious Whatever’ (splendidly sung by the Sex Pistols) and the truly execrable ‘Land of Hope & Glory’ (though here it’s the words I loathe, not Elgar’s music). It was composed by Parry for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and so poem and song are not mere celebrations of being English, but look forward to making England a better and juster place. Both poem and song have a strong political edge. It was Martin Luther King Day a few days ago, but I noticed few exclamations about how – horror of horrors – he was religious.

      1. You know the Star Spangled banner is only somewhat loosely based on history, right? Key watched the Brits bombard Ft. McHenry and looked for the US flag the next morning. When he saw it, he was glad. However, the defenders had taken down one flag during the night and replaced it with a bigger one the next morning. So the physical flag was not “still there.” The survival of the actual physical flag throughout the bombardment, the ‘real thing’ on which the entire verse hinges, didn’t happen. So our anthem also somewhat celebrates a nonexistent thing.

        To end on a more positive note, the bigger flag Ft. McHenry flew the next morning is held at the Smithsonian, and they have quite a nice display around it describing all the events and some of the historical follow-up (where it went between then and now, etc…)

        1. Had to make up something good. The Brits had just recently burned Washington DC to the ground.

    2. I think Land of Hope and Glory is musically great (it starts really well, though it fritters away a bit later on).
      The words are rubbish but then that’s the case with almost all anthems.

      cr

      1. There’s an alternative set of lyrics :
        Land of soap and water,
        Mother wash my feet.
        For they are so dirty,
        And they smell so sweet.

        When I take my socks off,
        They stand up on end,
        and if you could smell them,
        They'd drive you round the bend.

        2. Another alternative set of lyrics (doesn’t flow like your soapy water though ):

          Land of Charles Darwin
          Evolution by natural selection
          Monty Python’s Life of Brian
          Scientific inquiry
          Dawkins & Christopher Hitchens
          Shall help superstitions bonds release
          Scientists who make us more knowledgeable
          Help us understand thoroughly
          Technology which made our lives easier
          could be used to improve our world yet

  6. Not forgetting it’s yearly outing at the Proms. Royal Albert Hall, Hyde Park, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – all linked for the big sing-along…

        1. Beat me too it. My first intro to this ditty was as a Python reference. I have to admit that I had no idea what they were on about until today, though. It just registered as a traditional hymn of some sort.

          1. I had also only ever heard that song in various episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

            My daughter watched a lot of M.P. with me as a little one, and she only ever heard it as the song you sing when the guy puts a bag over his head because you said “mattresses” instead of “dog kennels”.

            When she was watching the recent royal wedding with her mom, she broke out laughing when they started singing the song. Her mom was mystified.

  7. As per the above comment it’s already used by the cricket team. A lot of English people are highly attached to it and it has a strong connection with the Anglican Communion which despite us all disparaging it we’re also quite fond of in a certain kind of way. A lot of atheists in England, myself included are quite happy to associate as Anglican atheist (we are all baptized and will baptize our children into it). It’s quite evocative of a yesteryear when the English speaking peoples were connected together with the mother country and the building of our shared history

    1. “English speaking peoples were connected together with the mother country and the building of our shared history”

      Speaking only for myself as a rude “colonial” I think this statement represents a view of an empire that disappeared beneath the mud of Flanders a hundred years ago. There are many of us who don’t share that happy-folksy view of the “mother country” and all her little mirlitons.

      If England wants it’s own anthem how about “Tennessee Waltz”. Oh wait – that’s already taken; how about Vera Lynn & “there’ll always be an england”. That should hit the right note of nostalgia for the stirringly better days of WW2.

      2. Oh absolutely, it doesn’t mean it’s not evocative for us in England. It’s important to remember where we come from

        I’m a strong Anglophile but I certainly neither want or expect any kind of British dominance in that. I just look to a future of more and open co-operation between UK/USA/NZ/AUS&Canada

        We also do have a shared history with you all in the USA, all the way back to the founding of Virginia through to the Leveller/Quaker colonisation that led to the ideas of the American revolution.

      3. Vera Lynn & “there’ll always be an england”. That should hit the right note of nostalgia for the stirringly better days of WW2

        “(There’ll be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” was allegedly more popular.
        Of course, outside stunts for filming, there won’t be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover. They’d be an introduced species, and trying to get an import license which might release several birds would probably be illegal.

    2. That sounds a bit close to the accommodationist Martin Rees’s view… ! Music is beyond religion though I agree – I love church music for example – I imagine that you mean that it is still a cultural part of you in the same way secular Jews sometimes carry out old religious habits…

      1. Yep, that’s exactly what it is to me. I have non-believing Jewish friends who Shabbos most Friday evenings too.

        Even Christopher Hitchens had a soft spot for Anglican hyms and devotional poetry and as a fellow Englishman I know he also understood the link between that and men like Milton, John Lilburne and Richard Overton

  8. They are talking about playing it before England as opposed to British Sporting Events where all four Countries compete under the Union Jack instead of the Cross of St George. Replace God Save the Queen ? you would have all the Sychophants of the House of Windsor taking to the streets in outrage. As a Republican I find the words of the Anthem cringe making in their obsequiousness.

  9. Its a gorgeous piece of music. I can remember singing it back (waaaay back) in my (Private) School days; we sang many hymns in rotation every morning and it was always a highlight.

    2. I agree wholeheartedly, this was a regular fixture for me too and I have always been a big fan of it

    3. Lots of people recall singing it at school. Is that because only school kids can sing it, while most (male) adults would struggle with the high notes?

  10. To confirm the previous comment. The UK isn’t England as many Americans think.
    It is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has 4 constituent nations. England, Wales,Scotland and Northern Ireland.
    Wales has its own recognised Anthem sung in its own distinctive celtic language. Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. (Ancient Land of My Fathers.) This is a recording at a Rugby football match https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVtswmhmcxs

    Scotland usually uses Flower of Scotland at sports matches. This would be one for England itself. We would still have God Save the Queen as a UK anthem.

    1. No more thrilling experience in sport then to be at Millennium Stadium before a Wales international as the crowd of 80,000 sings, in perfect harmony and on key, “Land of My Fathers.” Also fun to hear the crowd break into “Bread of Heaven” during the match.

      1. ‘Mae hyn wlad fyn hadau’ is one of the best national anthems there is (another is the French one). I remember being at Cardiff Arms Park, oh, hundreds of years ago when the great Gareth Edwards and Barry John were, respectively,scrum-half and fly-half, as the positions were then called, on the Welsh team. It was Wales versus England. Usually, the Welsh national anthem would be played first, followed by the ‘British’ national anthem (‘God save our gracious Whatever’), on these occasions. But this time, the band-master elected to play ‘God save our gracious Whatever’ first. The Welsh crowd naturally assumed it was the Welsh national anthem that was being played and launched into ‘Mae hyn wlad…’, totally drowning the band. I recall the bandmaster, who had turned to conduct the crowd, open-mouthed in disbelief, his baton and conducting hands sinking lower and lower… ‘God save our gracious Whatever’ came to an end unheard, and after a long, disbelieving look at the Welsh crowd, the bandmaster turned around, raised his hands, and the band launched into ‘Mae yn wlad…’ to the delight of the Welsh, including myself, who got to sing it twice. The next day the English newspapers were full of the insult to the Queen and the machinations of Plaid Cymru…

    1. ELP’s version is great but I think I prefer the traditional style. As a naive youngster I thought Keith Emerson and Greg Lake composed ‘Jerusalem’.

    2. ELP’s version should be obligatory, though a better choice would be “The Only Way (Hymn)” which is a nice diatribe against religion.

      ” Don’t heed the word, now that you’ve heard.
      Don’t be afraid: man is man made. “

  12. Of course the English or Brits can do as they please but I would not care for anything with the religious tone. Another reason to avoid sporting events.

  13. Jerusalem is a beautiful tune, but the lyrics are unsuitable for an anthem, as you point out.

    One of my favourite pieces of *English* music is Elgar’s Nimrod, and someone has put lyrics to it (possibly with the anthem in mind!). Not bad, and perfectly secular:

    http://tinyurl.com/hmm7yzu

        1. I was almost trying to work out how to buy music online last week to try to bump it into #1, but it seems the campaign fizzled.

  14. Blake’s poem is based on the legend that Christ came to England with Joseph of Amirithea. Joseph of Arimithea supposedly built the first English christian church at Glastonbury.

    1. … And stuck his walking stick into the ground, where it took root as a yew tree, IIRC.

      1. No, a hawthorn tree. Look up the history of the Glastonbury thorn, which was cut down in Henry VIII’s ‘reformation’, and that of the last abbot of Glastonbury, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in the pretty manner they used in those days.

  15. God what an awful tune,
    God what a hopeless tune,
    it is just pap.
    Send us a better tune,
    and please do make it soon,
    and without all of that,
    religious crap!

    1. Given the lyrics you just posted, why not sing them in the style of a Gregorian Chant? What more ominous tone to set for the international football opponents of The Three Lions?

      Just a thought, and perhaps an utterly silly one at that. (And now for something completely different…)

  16. Why not a song by the greatest composer England’s ever produced, Henry Purcell? “Fairest Isle” is the obvious choice. A paean to the beauty of the island, without the remotest imperial pretensions. Admittedly, it does mention gods, though not the kind to raise anyone’s hackles. Can’t think it would offend anyone either, unless there are any Cypriot’s listening. Here are Dryden’s words:

    Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
    Seat of pleasure and of love
    Venus here will choose her dwelling,
    And forsake her Cyprian grove.
    Cupid from his fav’rite nation
    Care and envy will remove;
    Jealousy, that poisons passion,
    And despair, that dies for love.

    2. Fair enough if England were an island. Unfortunately (for this thesis) Scotland and Wales are part of the same island as England.

      Maybe new words to one of these songs could be used, or miss out ‘incorrect’ verses. This is already the case with GSTQ which (in full) exhorts Marshall Wade “like a torrent rush, rebellious Scots to crush”.

  17. Re “Jerusalem” nice tune but consign the lyrics to the fate of Blake’s less well known explicit carnal pictures of heavenly love (i.e. mostly burned)
    Some of the message re replacing “dark satanic mills” might be progressive but the language is pure old fashioned mythological militarism. Shields chariots arrows swords spears “My sword shall not sleep in my hand”. Yech. Endless pictures of castles, military monuments superimposed with corny landscapes in the visual. Endless illusions to theocratic righteousness in the lyrics. Reminds me of St Pauls. Lovely church except stuffed with militaria and glorification of war. Depressing fact is all popular English national songs bombastic military nationalism or in the case of God save the Queen feudal royalty worship.

    1. Blake was anything but a classical conservative Christian. But you would not know of his wild and radical revision of Christianity from the lyrics of this song.

    2. Nonsense, Somer. You don’t know what you are talking about, and I doubt that you’ve read the poem. Blake is talking about his ‘mental fight’ (intellectual and artistic) for a juster society. The poem cannot be conflated with the chauvinistic memorabilia and sentiments on display in St Pauls and elsewhere. That is the sort of thing Blake spent his life standing against.

  18. Indeed! I remember the first verse of Blake’s “The Tyger” from my Junior year high school English class:

    Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
    In the forests of the night
    What immortal hand or eye
    Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.

    Oddly enough, the above stanza sounds to me like a rebuke of any divine arrogance to dare consider that it could control the awesome force which lives in all felids, wild or domesticated (a notion which is, of course, spot-on).

  19. The country that gave us David Bowie, Queen, Judas Priest, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Oasis, Black Sabbath, The Sex Pistols, The Police, Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, Coldplay, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, and many, many others is now considering this as its anthem? Seriously, why England, why? :'(

    1. Possibly they could get Elton to have a go at the music and get Bernie to do the lyrics?

    2. Agreed. What the hell.

      I approve of the gods in this one…

      The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
      To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

      Immigrant Song

    3. Beacuse it’s a famous song with a stirring tune that many English people have a deep affection for. The fact that the lyrics have archaic religious themes with little connection to everyday modern life is, to me, a point in its favour. I’m quite happy for an ancient nation like England to have an anthem that evokes the distant past and reminds us of our roots in it. The fact that the past it evokes is a piece of pseudo-history is beside the point. Lots of national anthems are similarly backward-looking or have lyrics that don’t withstand analysis as actual history. God forbid that we should ever have to endure an anthem composed by today’s so-called “progressives”. A hymn of praise to the joys of multiculturalism, uncontrolled immigration and the European Court of Human Rights perhaps? No thanks.

      And for all those sneering at our supposed “military nationalism”,lighten up. Waving a flag during the Last Night of the Proms is just an bit of fun on one night of the year. It doesn’t turn anyone into a Nazi.

      1. I don’t like a politically correct anthem either, but I did expect something…. cooler (excuse the modern parlance) than an early 19th century poem. A bit more British rock-ish.

        Sorry for bad English.

    4. Pop songs are designed to be sung by individuals. As melodies with identifiable words they rarely work when sung by ten thousand people in unison, any more than opera arias.

      1. Two notable English exceptions:
        “We Will Rock You”, “We are the Champions”
        and the band name is appropriate.

      2. I agree with Jonathan there.

        It’s also why anthems need to be slow, so the crowd can keep up.

        cr

    7. Seriously, why England, why?

      Because no-one knows more than two lines of it. Which is the main requirement AIUI for an anthem. Even most Scots struggle to get to the second line of “Flower” before fading out or getting the wrong later lines in place. And “Flower” has the benefit of being about kicking the neighbours heads in.

    8. I imagine that one of the first and foremost requirements for a National Anthem is that the chosen tune be out of copyright.

  20. The argument is mainly about an anthem for sporting events. Of the anthems that I regularly hear, God Save the Whatever is by far the best: it is by far the shortest. I am surprised that rugby players do not freeze during the interminable Italian anthem or the two Irish anthems. At least the length of the Welsh anthem is offset by the quality of the music.

      1. It’s better not to “embed” them, which, unfortunately, is what happens when you post direct links to Youtube (and some other) videos. Perhaps some other kinds of content, too, I forget.

        A way around this is to use the [a href=””]text here[/a] construct. You get up to two such links in a message… any more than that, and the message goes to moderation, thus bugging Jerry in another way.

      2. It’s better not to “embed” them, which, unfortunately, is what happens when you post direct links to Youtube (and some other) videos. Perhaps some other kinds of content, too, I forget.

        A way around this is to use the [a href=””]text here[/a] construct. You get up to two such links in a message… any more than that, and the message goes to moderation, thus bugging Jerry in another way.

  22. Blake is my actual favorite English poet,as opposed to what I might say in public.

    Reading Blake is cheaper, more legal and marginally safer than ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms.

    In my college days, people who read Blake were less likely to throw up on your couch than people who drank heavily.

    The melody is first rate. To get a feel for how Brits feel about it, rent and watch Chariots of Fire.

    2. Yes. It’s a great song in that movie. I quite like the song. Not sure how it works as a national anthem, but it’s not a bad song.

    3. The melody is first rate. To get a feel for how Brits feel about it, rent and watch Chariots of Fire.

      Speak for some Brits maybe, but certainly not all.

  23. First I’ve heard it. Dreadful to my ear – quit @ 0:51.

    OTOH, Sweden’s Du Gamla Du Fria is my idea of a national anthem. (This particular rendition is a bit over the top, but the lyrics are there in both Swedish and English – no veiled references to any deities!)

  24. I suppose they could always use “hail the conquering hero comes” from Judas Maccabeus – they already know the tune (they have stolen it for one of their insipid anglican hymns) and the actual words would work as well as anything. Of course it would start to get a little ironic after England loses five in a row…..
    OTOH maybe they really need a song contest open, naturally, to all in the EU.

  25. “The Tyger” really has nothing to do with England or any other country, so not anthem material, wonderful as it is.

    The Jesus’n’Mo cartoon is wonderful, but outside of satire there’s no way Blake could be wrangled in support of any kind of theocracy. He was resoundingly anti-clerical, and that comes across clearly in many poems, e.g. “The Garden of Love”.

    The “Jerusalem” that Blake evokes is not a theocracy but the Jerusalem of Revelation, a place where “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away”. In English cultural history that became bound up with early Christian Socialism and, transmuted and secularized, was seen in the post-war Labour government’s creation of the National Health Service and Britain’s first national parks. People like Ruskin and Octavia Hill had all played their part in that process. That’s why, quite apart from the superb poetry, I’d never have a problem singing “Jerusalem”.

    1. Exactly. I think a lot of the incredulity expressed in the comments is the result of foreign readers taking the lyrics much too literally. I’m as hard-core an atheist as you can find, but I still feel my chest swell up at first few bars of the song. Like you, I’d have no problem belting out some nonsense about Jesus going for a day-trip to Glastonbury. It’s the feeling that matters, not the content.

    2. And the poem serves as the introduction to Blake’s long poem ‘Milton’. Blake admired Milton because he, like Blake, was on the side of freedom. Blake, Americans may like to remember, was a supporter of both the American and French revolutions. I really find rather strange the lack of feeling for history that results in complaints about the ‘Christianity’ of those like Milton, Blake & Martin Luther King who fought for important freedoms.

  26. I don’t think that suggestion-of Jerusalem -can fly: it is taught and sung in all four countries-certainly in Scotland-and if the English tried to make it their own there could be protest and mayhem. It is a wonderful song and for England to claim it as solely theirs might very well weaken the always shaky bond among the four countries.
    Incidentally it is not ‘mental flight’ but ‘mental fight’. Maybe just a typo.

    1. No, it’s a specifically English song. The reference is to “England’s green and pleasant land”, not to any of the other bits of these islands.

      The Scots have their pedestrian dirge about Bannockburn and the Welsh are very happy with Hen Wlad fy Nhadau. They can leave Jerusalem to us.

    2. “… and if the English tried to make it their own …”

      Hold on, which country is mentioned three times in the lyrics?

      1. Yeah, I get that it mentions only England-but my point is that the beauty of the song transcends that minor insult. I am Scots by birth and upbringing and the song was taught and sung at all countrywide(all four) events of importance.And the lyrics are quite forward looking and inspirational. I am quite happy to regard its nationwide use as a generous gift from England of a thing of beauty. For England to claim it back as only belonging to England, to my mind, would sharpen the desire for separations!

          1. And the midges…

            “All small things that are in flight,
            God, save us from their ravenous bite!”

          2. Yeah, I knew I’d get tangled up in that kind of response sooner rather than later.spoken like an English peasant.

        2. Speaking as an (expatriate) Englishman I would be quite happy to see Jerusalem adopted. Your point about the literal words not being of overriding significance is echoed by me when I say I can easily overlook the religious connotations. It’s just a great tune.

          However, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of it, if you like it. So maybe my vote would go to “I vow to thee my country” instead.

          cr

          1. ‘I vow to thee my country’ stands in the same relation to UK as ‘Land of hope and glory’ and ‘ Jerusalem’. They belong to the whole country. So not appropriate for England to appropriate any of them. I was taught all of them as a grade schooler and sang them often. And still know all the words. Wales and Scotland have a much more coherent(correctly or not) sense of the unity of their cultures and songs that express that are not that hard to come by. England is not in that position.And less so now as people from all over the world take advantage of the commonwealth and for other reasons. So maybe England has to redefine itself in current terms rather than trying to reconstruct the past.They could have some fun with that. What expresses our current mixing of peoples and a decent attitude towards it.
            I also learnt a real sense of poetry and the power of language and metaphor through these songs.

          2. Poor bloody England, is there *anything* we own?

            Shakespeare – no, he’s Russian.
            The English language – no, it was invented by the (Norman-)French and the Americans have stolen it.
            Railways – no, they were invented by a Cornishman in Wales, and developed by a Northumbrian (anyone who claims Northumbrians are English should listen to one speaking, no Englishman can understand them 😉

            Not sure where I’m going with this…

            cr

          3. I suggested non-Englishness to our local Northumbrian the other day-hoping to appropriate him also. He looked proper horrified and sputtered a bit but had no answer. He is also red-haired so I felt he really has been misinformed of his true patrimony. He has pretty nice knees also so would look well in a kilt.

  27. I’m told that it’s up to the sporting organization to decide what anthem they play before the gig. Maybe all these suggestions for a new English anthem before sporting occasions are worse than everything else.

    You could certainly say that for the ‘Star-spangled banner’. Halfway decent tune but the original words were an old drinking song, by Ralph Tomlinson of the English Anacreontic Society, named after the ancient Greek poet who loved booze, lurve and poetry, and possibly in that order.

    To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee
    A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
    That he their inspirer would be
    When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian
    ‘Voice, fiddle, and flute
    No longer be mute,
    I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot,
    And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me to entwine
    The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.’

    Rumours that this was the unofficial US National Anthem during Prohibition are unfounded. x

    1. That sounds kind of right on to me.
      Tho’ when I was a child in Edinburgh the whole house had to stop while my father listened to The Archers.

  30. I’m fairly sure we sang “Jerusalem” when I was in high school (New Zealand), but not as a hymn. My main recollection of it is from watching the movie “Chariots of Fire”.
    I recall reading a year or so ago that the Church of England (or some group within it) had said that “Jerusalem”, since it is not in the CofE hymnal, was not to be sung as hymn in wedding services, even though a number of couples have asked for it.

    1. Um, wasn’t it sung at William and Kate’s wedding? I remember watching television and seeing some guy looking at his phone to get the lyric.

  31. Briefly, ‘Jerusalem’ will do, it mentions England a lot, and its grey and peasant land etc.. I think it will be accepted.
    It’s biggest drawback is its leeeeeeength, two verses with a musical intro, a bridge and close. Can anyone shorten it?

    1. You could just sing one verse. Though the second verse is less religious, and more aspirational, so would be my preference.

      Like several others here, I sang it often enough as school, and most seem to think it is quite a good communal tune. The Women’s Institute use it too (hence ‘Jam and Jerusalem’ as their stereotype).

  32. It’s funny how every attempt to create heaven on Earth has resulted in the opposite of heaven …

  33. Flanders and Swan addressed this problem many years ago, and proposed a new Anthem [a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdY1Y5XNJBY”]’The English are Best'[/a] (ever so slightly un-PC)

    otherwise there’s always Mad Dogs and Englishmen

        1. Thanks I really should have known that

          As this is a nice picture I’ll just post it
          Binnie Hale A Nice Cup of Tea

    2. Flanders and Swan addressed this problem many years ago, and proposed a new Anthem ’The English are Best’

      I re-did the link properly.
      “It’s knowing they’re FOREIGN /
      That makes them so MAD!”
      Not in the least PC, by intention, and far and away more honest than the current crop of contenders.

    1. Good grief – how did I miss that one. Oh, ’87 … I definitely voted. But I’d have been getting names for the end-of term caving club trip at poll-close time in may last weeks as tackle-master.
      Tomorrow belongs to the Maggon indeed. At least it did then. Worms have got her now, and good riddance.

        1. The Maggon’s. or Poly Styrene’s? One would be kinky, the other would be … deeply disturbing.

          2. I have some caustic soda. This is an … effective cleanser. What it doesn’t dissolve, it tries to turn to soap. For many things which are not soap (e.g. cell membranes), this is not good news.

          4. “cannot” is a big word ; it may charge a higher price than you’re willing to pay, but that is not a “cannot”.
            Thermonuclear revocation of disco’s Planning Permission … tempting.

  35. It’s hardly a religious poem: it’s a rather left-wing poem. The first half asks whether the young Jesus ever visited Britain (there really is an old tradition); the second says “whatever the truth of that, I’m gong to fight to make this a better place.

    Blake was really arguing about the growing Industrial Revolution (“dark satanic mills”)and in the same essay (“Milton”) that contains the poem he uses the expression New Age (first use in English) to describe his vision. So it’s really a New Age poem!

    Parry (Sir Hubert Parry, too – not William) set it in 1916 for a concert to raise money for a war charity, Fight For Right. Parry was a left-wing humanist and was uneasy about the cause (he had to be persuaded to write the tune). The song was a success. He later withdrew his support for Fight For Right and might have withdrawn the song had it not been for Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who suggested it might become the “Women Voters’ Hymn”. Parry was delighted and wrote to her, “I wish indeed it might become the Women Voters’ Hymn as you suggest. People seem to enjoy singing it. And having the vote ought to diffuse a good deal of joy too. So they would combine happily”.

    It was first used for the Suffragettes in 1918. Parry died the same year and when the Suffragette movement was wound up in 1928, his executor’s re-assigned the copyright to the Womens Institute.

    So, hardly a religious hymn – it’s a New Age song that became famous through the Suffragettes.

  36. The question is not one of replacing God Save The Queen. That is the national anthem used for the United Kingdom, and no-one’s suggesting getting rid of it.

    The issue is that Wales and Scotland have long had ‘official’ anthems; England does not (no-one seems to be talking about Northern Ireland, which has none either). The UK (or “Britain” if you will) will continue to use God Save The Queen). I’d rather it didn’t, but…

    1. God Save The Queen is an awful song. A suggestion for my friends south of Hadrian’s Wall: “Heroes”(David Bowie).

  37. ‘Jerusalem’ is OK. The words suck but the tune is great. I occasionally used to sing it at the top of my voice while driving fast (with window open) on country roads, doubtless startling the cows.

    Even better is “I vow to thee my country”, from Holst’s ‘Jupiter’. It’s a bit bizarre because the rest of ‘Jupiter’ (god of Joy?) is all orchestral fiddling and twitching, and quite unlike the haunting serenity of the ‘I vow to thee’ bit. In fact, you can’t even extract the good bit out of ‘Jupiter’ because the last note is interrupted by more fiddling.
    Apparently it was a favourite of Churchill’s, also Wills and Kate.
    Here’s a fair rendition of the hymn:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEUxgazdA-g
    Like Jerusalem, the words suck but the tune is truly beautiful.

    And of course there’s ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.

    ‘God Save the Queen’ is capable of being made to sound good, as is our ‘God defend New Zealand’, but they can also sound like terrible dirges. In fact most countries seem to have an ‘unofficial’ anthem that’s far better than the official one.

    Or of course, as a further alternative, there’s ‘Being British’:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48Qm8uj0H88

    cr

    1. The words do not ‘suck’ at all. They are intelligent and passionate. Which is something that cannot begin to be said about the chauvinistic, public-schoolboy mawkishness of ‘I vow to thee my country’ – words that like those of ‘Land of Hope & Glory’ are an insult to the quality of the music. I never forget seeing Ken Russell’s television film about Elgar, in which a column of blinded British soldiers, each with a hand on the shoulder of the man before him, jittered along (the film Russell used here was from the time of WWI) to the strains of ‘Land of Hope & Glory’.

      1. From an atheist’s point of view, the words of ‘Jerusalem’ sound as if they’re all about religion. Or mysticism. (Insofar as they can be discerned to be about anything. ‘Bring me my bow of burning gold, Bring me my arrows of desire, Bring me my spear, o clouds unfold, Bring me my chariot of fire’. ‘arrows of desire’? Just what is that about.)

        Actually, it sounds more Wagnerian than Xtian. If one imagines watching the skyscape sequences of ‘Flash Gordon’ while under the influence of LSD I think it’d fit right in.

        ‘suck’ was maybe not quite the right word to use. They’re certainly very poetic. But I think, if we’re going to take notice of the wording, an atheist should object to it.

        Myself, I don’t really care about the words, so long as the tune is good. I think I Vow to Thee my Country is an even more beautiful tune. (I agree about the words of that).

        cr

        1. The words allude to Book VI of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ in which the Son drives the rebel angels out of Heaven. Blake is using the images as a metaphor for his struggle for a juster society. We owe a lot to writers like Milton and Blake. I am sorry, but I think certain atheists should grow up a bit, develop at least some feeling for history, and not fall into the trap of the kind of excessive political correctness that exercises what has come to be called the ‘regressive left’.

          1. You are right. I’ve posted a few comments now, 35, 36 & 39, giving the background of the 1804 words and the 1916 song, and yet they seem to attract no comment, yet:

            1) The poem is not religious at all, and has many times been criticised by the church for being used as a hymn.

            2) The song was composed by a socialist-lite humanist and given (eventually)to the Suffragettes as their exclusive property.

            I’ll repeat: it’s a genuine New Age song (anti-Industrial Revolution) set to music by a left-leaning humanist. And churches don’t consider it religious.

          2. Thank you, Mr Brookes. I should only like to say that Blake is far more intelligent and mortally profound than any New Age thinker that I know of.

          4. Well, perhaps!

            I’m emphasising the New Age aspect because the first appearance in English of that term, with something like it’s modern meaning was in Blake’s essay from which the “Jerusalem” verses come.

          5. I must say, I find ‘baffling’ the bafflement of the author of ‘Jesus & Mo’ over the liking for ‘Jerusalem’. It has always been the most popular of Britain’s official and unofficial anthems (run a close second by Thomas Arne’s brilliant setting of the chauvinistic ‘Rule Britannia’ – Arne is a very underestimated composer, by the way), has been sung at Labour Party conferences (pre-Blair), and was drawn upon by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party for the 1945 election campaign.

          6. I would like to agree very wholeheartedly with Phillip Brookes and Tim Harris. It is not a religious song. The second verse is a kind of answer to the first – a vow to build a real new earthly Jerusalem in England, not a heavenly one. I can’t understand the opprobrium it has attracted here. Both words and melody are beautiful. I remember singing it in school, aged about nine, and feeling that I understood for the first time what poetry was.

        2. I should just like to say to infiniteimprobabilitit that I, too, am an atheist, and have been since the age of sixteen, and that he should not so readily presume to speak for all atheists. Some atheists are aware of the complexities of life and history.

          1. Lighten up, Tim. I usually agree with your posts. I’m always aware that I don’t ‘speak for all atheists’, which is impossible anyway since they disagree so much. I’ve been an atheist since about the age of ten so I outrank you anyway. 😉 (Not serious).

            As it happens I’m fine with Jerusalem and I’ve said so. However the words are full of what could easily be mistaken for religion so I could see why some atheists (including obviously PCC(E)) would have objections to it. Which, must I repeat, I don’t share.

            I expect the majority of those actually singing ‘Jerusalem’, if asked about the words, wouldn’t make such fine distinctions, they’d say “Yeah, they’re religious, so what, it’s traditional”. In other words, they wouldn’t really care.

            cr

  39. I wondered if Richard Dawkins (that well-known accomodationist) would share Prof CC(E)’s revulsion of Jerusalem.

    Googling produced two tweets:
    August 2013:
    Our Nat Anthem’s so dull (even worse than US). Alternatives? Elgar L of H & G too jingoistic. Parry Jerusalem too religious. Holst Jupiter?

    13th Jan 2016:
    God Save the Queen is indeed one of the dreariest, dullest tunes ever composed. Jerusalem would be far better.

    So evidently he isn’t so dogmatic on ‘Jerusalem’. He does share my liking for ‘I vow to thee my country’ (I have to call it that because it’s the identifiable part of ‘Jupiter’ which is suitable for an anthem). Presumably, like me, he’d prefer the words to be revised.

    cr

    1. This is interesting and perhaps shows that Blake’s ‘difficult’ poem is too much even for large intellects. The irony is that I Vow To Thee, My Country is overtly religious (“But there’s another country, etc, is about the Kingdom of Heaven).

      As I pointed out above (no. 35), Blake references an old Christian legend to emphasise what he intends to do to achieve ‘Jerusalem’ in England – that is, to oppose the growing Industrial Revolution. The Church of England (and other religions) has long complained about Jerusalem’s inclusion in hymn books, because it’s not a hymn and does not praise God.

      It’s a New Age poem, written by a mystic, set to music by a left-leaning humanist.

  40. Most people over here couldn’t care less whatever “English” anthem the right wing weirdos settle on.
    Anyway chanting “England, England” over and over seems to be the intellectual limit of of those who do care.

    1. Was that tune composed for the movie?

      It sounds familiar but I can’t identify any other origin.

      cr

  42. Well it’s obvious what the English Anthem should be especially in light of the Monty Python references upthread. The English anthem should be the Liberty Bell march as edited for the Monty Python theme tune.

    Firstly, it’s a fantastic piece of cultural appropriation. You’ll probably find that, even in America, if you play that tune, more people will say “it’s the Monty Python theme tune” than “it’s Souza’s Liberty Bell March”.

    Secondly, an this is the clincher, it will put the audience in the right frame of mind for the ensuing display by the England sports team.

  43. “I will not cease from mental fight;
    Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
    Till we have built Jerusalem”

    I understand that millions of British Muslims will sing a modified version of the anthem which says: Till we have built Mecca… or a Caliphate…. among those dark kafir mills
    🙂

    1. Edit: the final Muslim version…

      “I will not cease from mental jihad;
      Nor shall my scimitar sleep in my hand
      Till we have built a Caliphate”

      … among those dark kafir mills.

      1. Oh, for heaven’s sake. To paraphrase the NRA It’s not words that kill people. It’s people who kill people. Or are you advocating censoring the words. Or are you just making a smart remark.

      2. Ah, here they come out of the woodwork (and I’m not referring to Muslims, or even Islamists), and they can’t even scan…

          1. I’m sorry, but what’s Muslimophobic about my comment? FYI: my comment was a criticism of the sectarian content of the original song, if you haven’t noticed.

  44. Better Blake – though it would make a grim anthem:

    It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,
    To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;
    To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;
    To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies’ house;
    To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,
    While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

    Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,
    And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field
    When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

    It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
    Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

  45. Parody on ‘Jerusalem’ by William Blake

    And did those feet in ancient time
    Walk upon Israel’s dusty fields ?
    and was the “holy lamb of god”
    nothing but a pious fraud ?
    And could he see reality ?
    Or spout fantasy from clouded mind ?
    And was evolution realized to be true ?
    Among those superstitious pre-scientific minds ?

    Bring me Darwin’s ‘On the origin of species’
    Bring me the books of Richard Dawkins
    Bring me Coyne’s ‘Why evolution is true’
    Bring me the history of space flight
    I will not cease from rational inquiry
    nor shall reason and science be cast away
    Til we have built on the magic of reality
    In science’s green and pleasant lands.

    1. Well, that sort of limping banality is not going to inspire anybody, is it? More likely to turn people away from science for ever and ever, amen…

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