Now, I’ll lay my cards on the table right away; I’m not a fan of national anthems and all the jingoism that goes with them BUT with the World Cup going on we are hearing a lot of them at the moment.

They seem to fall into 3 types:

March-like/fanfare-like anthems – popular in the Middle East and the Caribbean 19th Century Operatic-style anthems – popular in South America The rest – mostly hymn-like

Before I go through my favourite anthems, and despite being British, I must say that the U.K. national anthem (“God Save the Queen“) has to be one of the worst.

“God Save the Queen” has been around for about 270 years now but there’s nothing “national” about it (it’s all about the monarch not the nation) and its reliance on asking an imaginary super-being to look after the monarch is fanciful at best and not especially inclusive in the modern world. It’s as dreary as dreary can be and, well, how can I put it, it seems it’s actually based on an old French tune! (Yes, really).

Surely, the U.K. deserves to be represented by something rather better, more inspiring, national and inclusive?

Anyhow…

My Top 5 National Anthems are:

5. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – “The Star-Spangled Banner”

‘The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially adopted as the National Anthem of the United States of America in 1931. The lyrics, however, had been written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key and sung to a popular British song by John Stafford Smith.

4. GERMANY – “Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles”

The German National Anthem uses a melody written by Haydn in 1797 in an anthem for Emperor Francis II. Haydn later used it in his ‘Emperor Quartet‘.

Haydn, ironically, was Austrian and notGerman.

3. RUSSIA – ‘Gosudarstvenny Gimn Rossiyskoy Federatsii’

The Russian National Anthem was written by Alexander Alexandrov. Russia has changed its anthem on a number of occasions – at the overthrow of the Tsar, when it became part of the Soviet Union, when the Soviet Union ceased to be, etc. The return to this anthem was controversial as it has been linked to the atrocities of Stalin.

2. FRANCE – La Marseillaise

“La Marseillaise” was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after France declared war on Austria. It was originally titled “Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin” – Song of war for the Army of the Rhine.

1. SCOTLAND – “Flower of Scotland”

Yes, I could happily argue that Scotland is nothing more than an administrative region of the U.K. rather than a nation state but I still think this is a great anthem and is used (along with a couple of other songs) as an unofficial anthem of Scotland. I especially love the flattened 7th towards the end of the melody.

It was written in the 1960s by folk musician Roy Williamson of The Corries and is about the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn.

By the way, in order to clear up any doubt about this decision….. I am NOT Scottish!