Australia 12 cents

[Yenn]

I heard Scott Morrisons speech to Australia this morning and he has changed the National Anthem wording, so now we are one and three or 12 cents in real money.

Jokes aside I missed the garbled words at the end of the speech, which should have been "Authorised by Scott Morrison Australian Liberal Party. Canberra"

Purely at political speech in which he applauds Australians for doing the right thing about the Covid virus. That is after he had spent a lot of time berating the premiers for not doing what he wanted.

We can be thankful that the premiers ignored him, because if they hadn't we would have been following in the footsteps of Donald Trump.

The one suss premier is Dan from Vic and we cannot blame him for making the wrong decisions, because neither he nor us know who did make the decisions

[red750]

Yenn, they changed the words from "young and free" to "one and free" supposedly in order to:

 

include the elderly,

include the original Australians who are a very old race,

and infer that we are a unified nation.

 

Political correctness run rampant.

[willedoo]

I've never liked our anthem; have always thought of it as a rather dreary tune with embarrassingly bad lyrics. But recently I've heard the version done by that aboriginal bloke, Uncle somebody, I forget his name. Anyway, it's really good; same tune with different, more relevant words. No wealth for toil or girt by sea BS. It made me realise that the tune is not bad when put to good lyrics. I think if we adopted Uncle Whatshisname's version, even the footy players would sing it.

[red750]

The trouble with 'girt' is that the only single syllable synonym is ring, which doesn't really fit. Go to Thesaurus.com, enter the sentence "Our home is girt by sea" and it will tell you there is no suitable alternative. To use a word with two or more syllables would sound even sillier. Try "Our home is encircled by sea."

[pmccarthy]

Why do I have to toil for wealth? Just put me on an increased Job Keeper. And my home isn't girt by sea, its bloody miles away.

[red750]

Ha! Ha! Not your home, our home, Australia. It is girt by sea. Not land-linked to anywhere else. Yes I know you knew that.

[pmccarthy]

Bound by sea?

 

[willedoo]

I don't know why we even need it in the anthem. All the rest of the world can just consult Google Maps to know we're girt. And no other countries really care if we get paid to work in our girted home with golden dirt.

[onetrack]

Mundine says it's a waste of time to change a few words to our anthem - it's a White Supremacy song, anyway.

 

I wonder what he'd prefer? A Black Supremacy song? I know who's the bigger waste of time, between him and the anthem.

 

The funny part is, no black tribe in Australia ever had a tribal or national song, anyway! It's a song purely for us conquering Whites! 

[red750]

The anthem was written in the late 19th century when attitudes and national identity were quite different from today.

 

History of Advance Australia Fair.

[old man emu]

I've said it before, Advance Australia Fair is a much more rousing national anthem than some of the dirges other nationalities have to put up with. At least AAF is about the Nation's people and the opportunity to make a better life. There's no invocation of a deity that some countries sing about, but ignore completely at the end of the song.

 

It's true that after being a Nation for 120 years, we aren't as young as some countries, but you name another Nation whose anthem calls for advancement, and has no reference to war.

[red750]

Some of the renditions of AAF you hear at sporting events are bloody woeful. But I am quite moved when they play it at the Olympic Games when our Aussie athletes win gold. Hopefully Daniel Ricciardo can get it played a couple of times this year, if Sir Lewis Hamilton will let him.

[Marty_d]

All anthems are breast-thumping jingoistic BS in a major key.

 

I like the Qantas theme song - not sure of the name but it goes "we are one, but we are many..." which includes everyone.  If we had a poll for a replacement anthem, that'd be my pick.

[red750]

Marty, that song is "We are Australian", written by Bruce Woodley and Keith Potger of The Seekers.

[red750]

Sorry, the correct title is "I am Australian".

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Those lyrics sure were written by a woman who lacked any scientific understanding. The worst thing is the " golden soil" bit, because  the truth is that Australia has the worst soils in the world.

Here in the Wimmera, on some of our best agricultural land, we have about 10 cm of topsoil and about 600mm of rainfall. In the Ukraine they have about a metre of topsoil and about a metre of rainfall. And our soil is badly deficient in phosphorous, a fact that took them many years to figure out in Australia. Our soil here is generally 5 cycles of sedimentary rock away from volcanic rock soils. Yep, the word " young" is badly applied to our soils.

[Bruce Tuncks]

And Marty, we did indeed have a poll about our anthem. I well remember it because I actually agreed with Fraser ( PM at the time) that Waltzing Matilda was better. We lost that vote.

[willedoo]

I like the Adam Hills version.

 

 

[Yenn]

Anything by the Seekers would be good, but for a really rousing national Anthem I reckon the French have it. I don;t know the words but the music ia all that an anthem should be.

It doesn't matter what the words are we will never please the aboriginals, they want more than they even know themselves. It would be nice to know exactly what they do really want.

[red750]

The biggest whinger is Anthony Mundine.

[red750]

As  a regular watcher of Formula 1, I enjoy the anthems of Germany (Mercedes) and Italy (Ferrari) as well as Australia, on the rare occasion it is played. I don't recall the Spanish anthem, although Sergio Perez did win a race late this year. The Spanish anthem has no lyrics.

[octave]

I think it would far better if our national anthem did not have lyrics.    The problem is that words will always become dated as society evolves.  By the way the French national anthem whilst the music is great the words are a little problematic.

 

English translation:

Arise, children of the Fatherland
Our day of glory has arrived
Against us the bloody flag of tyranny
is raised; the bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear, in the countryside
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your comrades!

To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions
Let’s march, let’s march
That their impure blood
Should water our fields.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Gosh Octave, those words are just awful.  Maybe the stupid stuff about golden soil is not so bad in comparison.

I still would be proud of waltzing matilda though...  a suicidal sheep-stealing tramp song would beat any of that crude stuff.

[old man emu]

Yes. The lyrics of La Marseillaise are bloodthirsty, but it was a rallying song for a revolution. 

 

Here are the lyrics of the second verse of God Save the Queen, more like a plea to the God of War, Mars.

 

O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On thee our hopes we fix:
God save the Queen.

 

Although Waltzing Matilda is a pleasant folk song, its context is truly outdated for the 21st Century. The tune is the Craigielee March as arranged by brass bandmaster Thomas Bulch (aka Godfrey Parker) from the original Scottish tune Bonnie Wood of Craigielea. Skip the first 30 seconds of this video

 

 

 

[octave]

Waltzing Matilda has for a long time been a sort of unofficial national anthem of perhaps national song.  Here is a clip from the opening of the 1982 commonwealth  games. I was a lad of 20 at the time, ancient history.   Had to play waltzing matilda probably a dozen times during the opening and closing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGGyP5iOcY