Some whimsy about national anthems.

[AccuTron]

This in no way is meant to be academic; it’s more like the audio version of “Mr. Magoo visits France’s Loover Art Museum.”   

 

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Last year, and so this is fuzzy… yet that which sticks is perhaps that which matters…Pandora was playing an a cappella version of the French national anthem, which spelled phonetically, is Lay Marszazee or something like that.

 

I love the French anthem.  It is robust, it has focused historical content, everyone can sing it, and the best singers may soar to great heights.  It fits the acoustics of Casablanca’s Rick’s Cafe.  

 

One can listen a dozen times without knowing French and stride around the room each time, any low chandeliers banged by the fists of triumphant Marchons.

 

I went to Youtube for more Lay Marsazees, then sampled a few other national anthems.  Here are my impressions.  The USA anthem I didn’t need to look up:

 

 

 

—Italy.  It’s been a long time since I listened, yet I think it has a pretty good beat; it’s Italian, I’d be shocked otherwise.  It seems that the original was proud of spilling Polish blood.  Given what little I know of the Italian unification struggle, it wouldn’t surprise me that Polish troops were allied with somebody or other.  I bet the Pope was involved.  Glad I wasn’t there.  

 

I guess it became obvious that spilling Polish blood is not the thing to sing about at later international sporting events, so that part was deleted.  

 

Comparing the two versions felt a bit hollow, reminding me of the feeling about the missing floor in the elevator song to Dr. T’s dungeon.  For those of you worrying what that even is, or feel bad that it’s missing, some good person has provided relief, at least for the dungeon song:  The Dungeon Song - RESTORED - YouTube   

 

 

 

 

— The Russian anthem struck me as weak, yet that is not a criticism.  Russia is in transition.  It had been the Soviet Russia, the behemoth, and it had available The International, already doing well on the charts.  

 

(Tang Dynasty does a kick tush version.  Turn up the volume and it’s not my fault if you break something, like your speakers or plaster or your neighbors ever again speaking to you:  Tang Dynasty - Internationale (唐朝 - 国际歌) - YouTube

 

The Tuvan throat singing version is also wonderful Tuvan Internationale - YouTube.  If you’ve already upset your neighbors and run off the cat, go ahead and keep up the volume.) 

 

The Soviet Russians had symphonic history to begin with, and reallllllly knew how to use it, and nobody else could be quite as good as Moscow’s version, or else.  

 

Yet that was then.  Where is Russia now?  In between something or other.  What is the future Russia?  I have no idea, and I’m not sure anyone else really does, though certain other European countries surely have strong wishes in that regard.  Putin doesn’t return my calls, so not sure there.  

 

In this era of doubt, it makes no sense to pin a country with an anthem that doesn’t really refer to anything.  It is an interim song, like putting “Student” on a form asking for occupation, when there is no other clear answer.  

 

Thus, the present Russian anthem seems to solely say “Russia is great, yay we’re great, really going to be even more great, gosh we’re great.”  Which strictly speaking, is true.  Russian art, music, physics, military:  from Stravinsky to Sukhoi, it’s one long Firebird Suite.  

 

So the anthem is not making any claims right now that it can’t specifically back up; likewise the music is so-so, something to use when an anthem is needed at a sporting event, yet not sweat over.  In dental metaphor, it’s a temporary crown.  

 

 

 

 

—Spain’s anthem seems to heavily swoon at the remembrance of the Spanish Royal domination of the seas several centuries ago.  I’d have to listen again, I think it sounded nice.  Yet, the missing reference to several centuries make the Italian gentility over not mentioning specific spilled blood seem to be almost myopic.  I have no suggestions.  I don’t even live there.

 

 

 

 

—The USA.  Heh heh.  Well, we now have Stefan’s unique singing of this piece, whereby Mr.M not only tried to somehow sing that infamous high note, a notably brave act, yet pulled it off, somehow morphing that alto sword into a very serviceable lower altitude plowshare.  I dare say that is musical history.

 

Few of us here would try it.  I think it derives from an English bar song for those who are very drunk, the singer and the listeners, so nobody will really remember what happened anyway.    

 

There is something or other by way of national character, at least where expensive sports commercials are concerned.  The football stadium is the primary image, a secret taste of ancient Rome.  The stadium contains the opposing forces of modern infantry squads attempting to get that satchel charge into the enemy bunker.   This is old news, indeed the dangerous crunching of opposing teams goes back very far.  

 

This is where the US anthem is mostly sung, since most people can silently move their lips during that cruel note and hope that enough thousands of females are present that maybe a third of them can manage it.  It's a bit comic how the overall volume of crowd song drops just then.

 

Yet the USA has, I think unintentionally, also incorporated the ancient meso-american ritual of a single human sacrifice atop the pyramid.  Now geometrically inverted into a Romanesque stadium, everyone gets to be judge-priest.  

 

One person, alone, stands in front of a microphone and thousands of judges.  The serpentine dagger of acoustic biophysics awaits.  They have a singing career.  If they make that note, the many judges will thumbs up, and the heavens will bless, at least for a week or so.  If they fail, the dagger of acoustics is plunged into the heart of their career, the remaining verse only the desperate pumping of a killed heart, witnessed live across the land.  I wouldn’t try it.

 

 

 

That’s what I have.  What about you?