An English national anthem. (1 Viewer)

Jerusalem is correct imo. There would be hairs standing on the back of your neck to hear a crowd sing that with passion.

Think I am one of the only people thinking Jerusalem is a shit tune. Rule brittania is better, then land of hope and glory

To reflect the current mood of the nation at the passing of the legend Bowie how about Heroes ?

Aren't there more important things for the politicians to worry about!

Ok - Vindaloo (favourite food in the country after all) :guitar2:

skybluekelly98 said:

Think I am one of the only people thinking Jerusalem is a shit tune. Rule brittania is better, then land of hope and glory

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Isn't this the point that God save the queen is a British song so they want something for England alone? I agree on land of H&G though.

our current anthem is dull and slow. You compare it to Scotland and they can sing it with passion and pride whereas we don't.

I like Jerusalem, but I think Land of Hope and Glory is better and better suited and also obviously is a better titled tune for the country than Jerusalem, which isn't in England at all I believe

I am not convinced Jesus came over here on holiday.

Forgive me for being a pedantic Paddy, but isn't Jerusalem the capital of Israel? Why the f**k would that be a good anthem? You might as well have Barbados by Typically Tropical or New York, New York by Sinatra.
Jerusalem?

skybluekelly98 said:

Think I am one of the only people thinking Jerusalem is a shit tune. Rule brittania is better, then land of hope and glory

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Am with you on Rule Brittania.

Could we have the Emerson Lake and Palner version of Jerusalem?

Not sure that land of hope and glory is suitable any more .
The way this Country is going am sure we can all come me up with a few more entertaining options?

Steve.B50 said:

Not sure that land of hope and glory is suitable any more .
The way this Country is going am sure we can all come me up with a few more entertaining options?

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Land of Chavs and Tories?

Jerusalem for me followed by Land of Hope and Glory. Anything other than the current dirge. It must be the most depressing anthem in the world.
And now for something completely different...I think Taiwan have the Monty Python theme tune...that might be fun.


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Jerusalem for me too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - so please excuse any spelling or grammar errors

I Vow to the my Country, from him.
Not Arf.

My suggestion,
Engerland, Engerland, Engerland.
Engerland, Engerland, Engerla-and
Engerland, Engerland, Engerland
Engerland En-ger-land.



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Swords of a thousand men by Ten pole tudor

Land of hope and glory.

But does this really matter at this time they should be spending time getting the junior doctors sorted if this had been brought up by a Tory I would said it was a smokescreen.

Would love it to be Jerusalem, I hate it being about a scrounger old woman. If it has to be God Save the Queen can it be the Sex Pistols version?

"Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set" was all very well 150 years ago, but not now. So that rules out Land of Hope & Glory for me. And Brittania plainly doesn't rule the waves. Neither of those is any improvement over that dirge about a delusional old lady who thinks she's a queen.

Has to be Jerusalem. Never mind the pedants who can't see that it's an allegory, not about an actual place in Palestine or where Jesus ever visited or whatever.

skybluekelly98 said:

Think I am one of the only people thinking Jerusalem is a shit tune. Rule brittania is better, then land of hope and glory

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No you aren't - Jerusalem is nothing to do with modern England whatsoever...I think it has religious conotations for a start - so that counts that out!

Land of hope & glory definitely a front-runner for me...though still not a modern day England relevance as it's sea-faring slanted (I think). Rule Brittania is a no...its on about Brittania not England.

What about Imagine? Written by a great English icon...it is anti everything except luuurrv for one & another whatever sex, shape, size, creed or colour (I think).

...onwards & upwards PUSB

rd45 said:

"Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set" was all very well 150 years ago, but not now. So that rules out Land of Hope & Glory for me. And Brittania plainly doesn't rule the waves. Neither of those is any improvement over that dirge about a delusional old lady who thinks she's a queen.

Has to be Jerusalem. Never mind the pedants who can't see that it's an allegory, not about an actual place in Palestine or where Jesus ever visited or whatever.

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Can see that if course, but it's called Jerusalem! A song for England called Jerusalem! How daft does that sound!

Is there any other anthem anywhere in the world where the title of the tune has absolutely nothing to do with the country it represents?

Otis said:

nothing to do with the country it represents?

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Do you need someone to explain to you what it means?

rd45 said:

Do you need someone to explain to you what it means?

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I know what it means! Just said so. I am saying the TITLE has nothing to do with England. I understand the connotation of the tune, but Jerusalem is in the Middle East. I am talking about the title. On paper it just looks daft. The English national anthem's title being the name of a city in the Middle East.

The strange myth in the song Jerusalem

• 13 January 2016
• From the section BBC Magazine

England may soon have its own national anthem and the odds-on favourite is Jerusalem. The famous song has a rather strange myth at its heart, writes Gareth Rubin.


Jerusalem is the musical setting of William Blake's poem Prelude to Milton. But Blake, a Romantic whose poetry and paintings often tended towards the bonkers end of "visionary", wasn't merely musing on the holy influence in England. He was specifically thinking about a legend that as a boy, Jesus of Nazareth visited England with his great uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a sailor and trader. The "feet" in the line "And did those feet in ancient time" refers to Jesus.


Some try to justify the legend on the grounds that Joseph might have come to buy tin from Cornish mines, but if there is any hard evidence at all, it has yet to come to light.


Instead, the legend of Jesus walking upon England's mountains green is part and parcel of the cycle of medieval legends about Britain's own King Arthur. Those stories say that after Jesus's Crucifixion, Joseph took the Holy Grail to Glastonbury, where he established the first English church. But that's not all he left. According to the 14th Century monk John of Glastonbury, Arthur, the greatest of British heroes, was Joseph's great-great-great-great grandson - and therefore related to Jesus himself.


One of the most famous legends about Joseph's time in Glastonbury states that one night he struck his staff into the ground and went to sleep. When he awoke he saw that a hawthorn tree had miraculously sprung from the staff - and the Holy Thorn survived until it was cut down as a relic of superstition by the puritanical Roundheads during the Civil War. It was replaced by the local council - twice - in the 1950s, only to be hacked down with a chainsaw six years ago. No one is really sure why.


So why did Blake spin a poem about a medieval myth? Probably because England at the time was a place of change and he wasn't entirely happy about the direction it was taking. It was the time of the Industrial Revolution, when factories - the dark Satanic Mills he wrote of - seemed to swallow people up and spit them out broken and mangled. As a nonconformist Christian, Blake looked back on a time when a religious figure could walk in barefoot simplicity on "England's green and pleasant land".


And Blake isn't the only one to turn to the legend when writing about England in bloom. Irish rocker Van Morrison's song Summertime in England includes the line: "Did you ever hear about Jesus walkin' / Jesus walkin' down by Avalon? [Glastonbury]."


Sadly for those who want to draw a direct connection between the West Country and the Son of God, Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of church history at the University of Oxford, describes the legend as "totally implausible". "It obviously didn't happen. Why should a carpenter's son from the eastern Mediterranean even think of coming here. It's just silly English self-promotion. Nothing more to it than that."


Still, it's not a dead loss, suggests MacCulloch: "Blake was a mystic, and he was saying, in his lovely poetry, that God dwells everywhere - including England."

Christ almighty. Literal-minded crap.

You know that thing you can do when you say one thing & use it to mean another? When someone says it's pissing down outside, do you think there's actual piss falling from the sky?

Same thing here.

rd45 said:

Christ almighty. Literal-minded crap.

You know that thing you can do when you say one thing & use it to mean another? When someone says it's pissing down outside, do you think there's actual piss falling from the sky?

Same thing here.

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That is Exactly my point! Not saying I believe this BBC effort at explanation at all, but it shows the ambiguity here.

As I say, it is just the title.

Can you imagine the looks on schoolkids' faces when for the first time ever they are told the national anthem of England is Jerusalem!

Seems to me that every time anyone is told who is not in the know, an explanation is going to have to follow.

Can imagine at an awards ceremony too if national anthems were being announced.

'We have ....

America - The Star Spangled Banner

Scotland - Flower of Scotland

Australia - Advance Australia Fair

Canada - O Canada

England - Jerusalem

Otis said:

every time anyone is told who is not in the know, an explanation is going to have to follow.

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Sorry, didn't mean to rip into you.

You're right about the explanation thing, and it's a great opportunity. You get to have a conversation about why we're singing a song about working together with our bows of burning gold etc to make our country a better place.

Right now, we ask children to stand up & sing a song about how they love to have some mad old bint in a big house in west London to be in charge. IMHO, that's the one that could do with some explaining.

rd45 said:

Sorry, didn't mean to rip into you.

You're right about the explanation thing, and it's a great opportunity. You get to have a conversation about why we're singing a song about working together with our bows of burning gold etc to make our country a better place.

Right now, we ask children to stand up & sing a song about how they love to have some mad old bint in a big house in west London to be in charge. IMHO, that's the one that could do with some explaining.

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Indeed and no worries.

The words to God Save the Queen have little in common with modern day life do they, especially after the first verse.

I like Jerusalem, just have a problem with the title.

There'll always be an ENGLAND!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GvkyKEYRnM

Sumo the Micky Quinn said:

There'll always be an ENGLAND!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GvkyKEYRnM

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It is quite stirring...a little dated though - & somehow I can't imagine a crowd of English supporters remembering the words beyond the actual title...it'd just hardly ever get sung. Just a musical interlude.

...onwards & upwards PUSB

Sumo the Micky Quinn said:

There'll always be an ENGLAND!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GvkyKEYRnM

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At least it isn't laced with religious nonsense, but spoiled by containing 'red white & blue' as a lyric, which sort of refers to the blue of the St Andrews Cross in the Union Jack and talks about the 'Empire'.

Rule Britannia has an arrogance about it IMO. Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory

Britannia is NOT England

...onwards & upwards PUSB