God save the Queen !

[french frank]

BBC feature points out that Mr C has something in common with the Queen - she also remains silent.

[Nick Armstrong]

Gives a whole new meaning to "standing for the National Anthem"!

Ta-dum!

[Barbirollians]

I cannot abide the words or the music but I tend to sing it if it is being sung . The idea ,however, that it shows a lack of respect for anyone if one chooses not to sing a song about a deity in whom you do not believe saving a hereditary monarch whose power and status you regard as an anachronism is unpatriotic or offensive is absurd .

[pastoralguy]

I would absolutely LOVE to see/ hear 'Fairest Isle' replacing our deadly dull, smug and outdated 'National Anthem'.

Wow! What a coincidence. It just came on as I read your post.

Spooky, possums.

[pastoralguy]

Billy Connelly suggested the theme from 'The Archers' as a replacement for GSTQ.

[Beef Oven!]

Billy Connelly suggested the theme from 'The Archers' as a replacement for GSTQ.

Great music - just keep the lyrics and we're done

[ahinton]

Billy Connelly suggested the theme from 'The Archers' as a replacement for GSTQ.

But, like me, Billy Connolly is a Scot, so it doesn't matter for him in the same way as it might for certain Sassenachs (escecially as Referendum Mk. II now seems to be on its way). Anyway, why he'd have suggested such an idea other than as a wind-up I have less than no idea; the tune is a march called Barwick Green from an orchestral suite entitled My Native Heath by Arthur Wood (1875-1953) and had no words attached to it anyway, so unless someone were to append some, no one would sing it as a National Anthem or as anything else; I have occasionally wondered whether Benjamin Britten had heard it, in view of what sounds rather like a crib from its first notes in his Simple Symphony from around a decade later, but were it not for the use of that march as the sig tune for that soap, Wood would be almost forgotten today (as indeed most of the rest of his work is anyway.

How that soap's endured into the second decade of this century is beyond me; I wonder if it will continue to do so once the farming industry which has always been its foundation has largely disappeared from Britain as is already happening to dairy farming. Its strapline as an "everyday story of country folk" is inaccurate in that it's only broadcast on six days of each week, but who in any case ARE these "country folk", of whom some apparently have no identifiable accents at all and others speak a kind of BBC Brummerset?

No - great as Billy Connolly is, I think that he's on a hiding to nothing with that idea!

[ahinton]

Great music - just keep the lyrics and we're done

What lyrics? You can't put those of GSTQ to Barwick Green; even the ISIHAC team would struggle to do that in a "one song to the tune of another" round!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What lyrics? You can't put those of GSTQ to Barwick Green; even the ISIHAC team would struggle to do that in a "one song to the tune of another" round!

Let God save our gracious Queen
Long live noble Queenie
On the throne so long she's been
She's almost part o'the scen'ry

Poor old Charlie
He's left to parley
(Particularly
To weedies)

Let us bless the dear old Queen
And bugger all the expense.

[Flosshilde]

Perhaps BO is referring to these lyrics - "Tum ti tum ti tum ti tum, tum ti tum ti tuumty" etc

[Pabmusic]

As it's the centenary of WW1, I thought I'd be 'inclusive' and play the German royal anthem, Heil dir im Siegerkranz. Before 1795 it was the royal anthem of Prussia. They gave it up in 1918:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVWnRt9BarU

Trouble with us is that we assume GSQ is our anthem. It's not; it's our royal anthem.

[ardcarp]

Well I'd like to play the Norwegian National Song for no other reason than its being rather well sung here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRS6cbLOrPQ

[ahinton]

Trouble with us is that we assume GSQ is our anthem. It's not; it's our royal anthem.

All this talk of GSQ and GSOGQ makes me think of GCHQ. Anyway, you're right about this, hence my Fairest Isle suggestion if we must have a National Anthem....

[Pabmusic]

All this talk of GSQ and GSOGQ makes me thinkog GCHQ. Anyway, you're right about this, hence my Fairest Isle suggestion if we must have a National Anthem....

And I'd second you. Much as I like Jerusalem, someone would have to muck about with the words. Fairest Isle is perfect. (But they'd make a mock-Victorian hymn of it, and sharpen the 7th! )

http://www.regalzonophone.com/Player%20Australian%20-%20YPRX1048%20-%20Brisbane%20City%20Temple%20Ban.htm

(Scroll down the playlist)

[Mary Chambers]

Dryden's text for Fairest Isle isn't exactly suitable for a national anthem. It's an aria sung by Venus in King Arthur. The first verse reads:

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

However, we sang another version, the authorship of which I'm not sure of:

Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
Cradled midst the western seas,
Where sweet peace hath made her dwelling,
Where she sporteth at her ease.
Blessed isle, where gladness reigneth,
Where the wand'rer findeth rest,
Where the churl alone complaineth,
Where the brave and true are blest.


As far as I can make out, Alfred Deller sang both versions. I think I once had a recording of version 2.