I watched a medal ceremony at the Commonwealth games yesterday, it was a nice moment, England had won gold beating Australia by a whisker (always extra nice moments!) but as the flag rose up the pole the hymn "Jerusalem" belted out across the stadium, nice tune, but what an anticlimax, it felt entirely wrong.
A bit of quick research threw up the fact that for this games apparently there was a vote to see which tune should be played at medal giving ceremonies involving the English team and the winner was the aforementioned Blake inspired ditty. Not wanting to be labelled a traditionalist I have a dilemma here, it sounded wrong to use this hymn because its the stirring words that make it, and clearly there are no words at a medal ceremony, however both this and our national anthem are full of delusional deity inspired nonsense that any self respecting Atheist would avoid given a choice. My conclusion was that we need a new anthem, something that actually reflects our country as it is now rather than as it was in 1890, but what modern work could hope to stand shoulder to shoulder with a classic like Jerusalem, perhaps we should get Simon Cowell on the case, on second thoughts..
5 comments:
So "I vow to thee my country" must be out as well?
National anthems : patriotism, jingoism, woo woo. Take your pick. Often you get three for the price of one.
If they awarded another medal for fourth place they could all do the YMCA song?
what about using "Lord of the Dance"? That would annoy most Christians as much as it would everybody else.
G, as long as we don't all have to wear tights!
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