I’m not big on national anthems. The only use I’ve ever seen in knowing what they are is as the answer for a once-in-a-blue-moon quiz question, but the French one, La Marseillaise, has had permanent dibs on my soft corner ever since I first gave it a proper listen, at the start of the 1998 World Cup finals (and later, when I realised it was the intro to All You Need Is Love).
This may seem like an odd niche for Zonuts to be dipping into, but I blame a recent bout of Asterix-reading for the fact that it just won’t get out of my head. And I recommend looking up a translation of the lyrics, they are not only beautiful, but also somewhat…bloody (no offence to any French people who find this- I just mean there are literal references to blood and slit throats, is all)
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Édith Piaf- La Marseillaise
My favourite version, not only because it’s Piaf, but because of the sheer joy she seems to take in singing it. I’m not sure when this was recorded, but if I didn’t know better, I’d have said it was sometime during the WWII occupation of France. If you download/listen to nothing else in this post, don’t pass this one up- unless you have it, of course.
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Serge Gainsbourg- Aux armes et cætera (reggae spin on the national anthem, that earned him a few death threats once it was out)
I’m not massively fond of this, partly because I first heard it when I was in the grip of an ‘I-hate-reggae’ mood, but it deserves better than to be heard under such circumstances.
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Cassandre Berger- La Marseillaise (from the film La Môme a.k.a. La Vie en Rose, lip-synched by Pauline Burlet, the child actress in the clip. By all accounts, it’s a real-life incident…the life being that of Édith Piaf)
La Marseillaise (Casablanca). Probably my favourite scene.
I quite like national anthems. It’s where my taste in classical music, church music and history overlap.
I remember I was once whistling a hymn from church I liked. A friend asked me how I knew the German national anthem — he’d heard it in F1. As it turns out the old hymn was converted into a new anthem.
Here would be the place to mention Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner, and Queen’s God Save the Queen. (And maybe the Sex Pistols too?)
I like ours, too, even if I can barely remember the tune to most. But La Marseillaise is special for me because of the sheer vivacity and joy of the song (which isn’t quite apparent in instrumental versions, it comes from the lyrics)- it’s hard to resist.
Interesting re: the conversion-of-hymns-to-anthems thing. I’m guessing both kinds of songs dealt with a lot of similar themes, hence the overlap. And yeah, this is probably the place to bung all the national anthem rock we can remember ^_^.
Yeah they really sing it with verve, don’t they?
I think the German anthem only took the tune from the hymn. Or the other way round. (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/l/glorious.htm)
The South African national anthem is quite beautiful. I first heard it in the movie about Steve Biko “Cry Freedom”.
The reggae dub is amusing : ) and paif… joyful indeed.
Listen the the Omani national anthem, an Arabic choir over marching band
http://users.atw.hu/szbszig/oman.mp3
I’d learned how to sing this when I was a wee kid in Oman. The tune makes me nostalgic… sigh
The reggae dub is amusing : ) and paif… joyful indeed.
Listen to the Omani national anthem, an Arabic choir over a marching band
http://users.atw.hu/szbszig/oman.mp3
I’d learned how to sing this when I was a wee kid in Oman. The tune makes me nostalgic… sigh
Very European sounding anthem. Most of them tend to be. I think they came up with the idea.
dhamwal: Yeah, it’s very Gainsbourgian…turns out he managed to work some filth into the lyrics too (I don’t know French well enough to figure out just how). Piaf is amazing though, and the Omani anthem (what language in it) is v. nice.
Han: Yeah, I suppose there’s a bit of a European feel to it…quite possible. But then all national anthems sound like that to me- especially in instrumental form.