God save the Queen !

[Bryn]

Its dreary musically, in any case.

Oh,I don't know. Ives did good things with it:

[Serial_Apologist]

I have noticed at big football matches substantial numbers of people don't sing the national anthem.

A phoner in to a TV chat show this morning answered that Rooney had indeed been hauled over the stephanies for not joining in - so, if Rooney, why then not Jezza?

Either way, an own-goal was unavoidable for the man the meedja now have firmly gripped in a double-bind.

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh,I don't know. Ives did good things with it:

Yes - as indeed it does in Stockhausen's Hymnen - albeit more surreptitiously, and without the devastating meltdown accorded to "Deutschland..."

[Mary Chambers]

I've been a choral singer, and have had to sing it many times. It doesn't worry me at all, and anyone who sings a lot knows you don't have to believe what you sing. It's not a good idea to take it all literally. I found Land of Hope and Glory harder, but in a big choir it is entirely possible to make up one's own version. I regard Rule, Britannia as a historical song. Again, it doesn't bother me to sing it.

I think Corbyn probably should have made a feeble, unenthusiastic attempt to conform on this occasion, just out of good manners and consideration for others. He's going to have to compromise on much more than a song if he ever gets into power (unlikely).

Possibly predictably, I like the Britten version best - it makes it sound almost like music - but it can leave audiences very confused if they aren't warned/prepared!

[ahinton]

The problem is there the words, but then that's easily fixed:

"Let's drink our precious gin
Long live our noble gin
Let's drink the gin
Imbibe victorious
Ginny and glorious
Long to hang over us
Let's drink the gin"

That's all very well, but it still leaves ample room for divisiveness; WHICH gin, after all? Divisiveness between rich who imbibe Gin Mare, Tanqueray 10 and the like and poor who partake of Greenalls or some other relatively inexpensive gin; divisiveness between those who insist upon a London gin and those who prefer a Herefordshire, Welsh, Plymouth, Scottish or even prefer foreign one. And so on and so on.

As to the dull tune (and boy, ISN'T it dull) and the words which are OK for some but not so for agnostics, atheists and anti-monarchists, the problem would so easily be solved (at least for those who still want to retain a National Anthem, the very point of which is, I confess, rather lost on me) by adopting Fairest Isle from Dryden's King Arthur in Purcell's setting - no deity, no monarch, just a celebration of the nation and, as such, surely more universal? Somehow I cannot imagine even QEII herself raising particular objections to this, having already been "saved" as a monarch for longer than anyone else in Britain (à propos which, although she's the second longest reigning living monarch, she's 47th in the list of monarchical durations found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...gning_monarchs).

[ahinton]

I've been a choral singer, and have had to sing it many times. It doesn't worry me at all, and anyone who sings a lot knows you don't have to believe what you sing. It's not a good idea to take it all literally. I found Land of Hope and Glory harder, but in a big choir it is entirely possible to make up one's own version. I regard Rule, Britannia as a historical song. Again, it doesn't bother me to sing it.

I think Corbyn probably should have made a feeble, unenthusiastic attempt to conform on this occasion, just out of good manners and consideration for others. He's going to have to compromise on much more than a song if he ever gets into power (unlikely).

Yes, but in all the speculation as to why he kept his mouth shut on that occasion, no one seems yet to have put forawrd the possibility that he just can't sing...

Possibly predictably, I like the Britten version best - it makes it sound almost like music

!!! - that reminds me of the unworthy remark that I made to the late Malcolm MacDonald (well, he wasn't "the late" then, of course!), a noted authority on Schönberg, that after many years of inability to make head or tail of that composer's violin concerto, I'd recently heard it played by Hilary Hahn and really got it at last, adding that she actually makes it sound as though it's a piece of music, to which Malcolm somehow contrived to resist the golden opportunity to provide a dusty answer...

[vinteuil]

Yes, but in all the speculation as to why he kept his mouth shut on that occasion, no one seems yet to have put forward the possibility that he just can't sing......

,,, or that he had a norrible example to be by all means avoided -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIwBvjoLyZc

[Serial_Apologist]

,,, or that he had a norrible example to be by all means avoided -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIwBvjoLyZc

Thanks for saving me the bother, vints!

Then of course there was Prescott scowling to the words of "Things can only get better"...

[Bryn]

The evidence to hand suggests the man in question does indeed have difficulty singing, even tunes he might be expected to know well:

[Once Was 4]

Sorry, wouldn't be seen dead reading a copy of the Daily Mail so, of course, I do not know what you mean.

[Mary Chambers]

Yes, but in all the speculation as to why he kept his mouth shut on that occasion, no one seems yet to have put forawrd the possibility that he just can't sing...


..

Anyone can mime! I suppose one would need to know the words, though.

[vinteuil]

Anyone can mime!

... I refer you to my #22 above...

[Beef Oven!]

Don't take this too seriously folks, but would you sing it if (a) you didn't believe in God and (b) you disapproved of the Monarchy ?
I would (a) because I'm a hypocrite and (b) because I like a good mass sing-song...be it Jerusalem or The Mayor of Bayswater.

Of course I'd sing it even though I don't believe in God and if we didn't have a monarch already, I wouldn't lobby to get one.

All harmless fun, and if you don't like it, get migrating!

[ahinton]

Of course I'd sing it even though I don't believe in God and if we didn't have a monarch already, I wouldn't lobby to get one.

All harmless fun, and if you don't like it, get migrating!

But to save the trouble and expense of doing that, what about my Purcell/Dryden suggestion?

[Beef Oven!]

But to save the trouble and expense of doing that, what about my Purcell/Dryden suggestion?

I prefer Daz. Even Omo at a push.