The national anthem

of Downunder sounds like a dirge. Among some truly awful national anthems it has to be one of the worst.

Okay, yes I know it is our national anthem but I loathe it. I know there will be people who will read this and strongly disagree with me. I know a national anthem should not be a dance in the streets thing. It should be sober. It should give a chance for reflection. This one doesn't. It is just supremely depressing.

Naturally it was played at Remembrance Day ceremonies recently. I happened to be visiting the Senior Cat while their small service was going on. Not one elderly person in the room knew the words or could sing it. That was not unexpected. They grew up, as did I, on "God save the Queen".  

Since then I have done a little research of my own. I first asked MsW if she knew the words to the national anthem. Her response was, "The first bit - but only because we had to learn it for choir." 

I asked her form teacher to do something for me. Could the girls write the words? Like MsW the rest of the form knew "the first bit". They knew the first verse  - enough to get them through most occasions. Did they like it?  Nobody admitted to liking it although one of the girls told me, "I don't suppose we are actually supposed to like it."

 I ploughed on out into the community and I asked more people. In ten days I asked another forty-seven people in places like the supermarket, the library, the bank, the post office. I asked friends and neighbours. 

Only one person knew more than the first couple of lines - and some didn't even know that.  

As a piece of research goes this is just too flawed to reach any conclusions. I would need to ask a lot more people over a much wider area to come to any real conclusion. That said I did try to ask people from across the age groups. Nobody declined to answer. 

And nobody told me they liked it or that it had a positive effect on them. Of course I was not asking them that I was simply asking, "Do you know the words to our national anthem?"

There are calls to change the words to the national anthem. They are said to be offensive to some. Perhaps there should be no words at all. The late Judith Wright, poet and activist,  once said that it was not possible to write the words to a national anthem in the 20thC. We are now in the 21st and it seems even less possible now.

Waltzing Matilda with no words might be better?