I have never been a fan of my nation’s national anthem. It has always just sounded pretty dull at the Olympics or a football game or the Forumla 1, especially in comparison to some of the others out there.
But one thing that has interested me is that we only ever sing the first verse, the same verse that everyone knows. So I thought it would be worth learning a little more about the tune and finding out the contents of the illusive 2nd and 3rd verses.
This wasn’t difficult a quick Wikipedia search identified these as the lyrics:
- God save our gracious Queen!
- Long live our noble Queen!
- God save the Queen!
- Send her victorious,
- Happy and glorious,
- Long to reign over us:
- God save The Queen!
- 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 us all.
- Thy choicest gifts in store,
- On her be pleased to pour;
- Long may she reign:
- May she defend our laws,
- And ever give us cause
- To sing with heart and voice
- God save the Queen!
I made this search just before heading off to Stansted Airport so had just enough time to jot them down in my notebook.
Time for learning. One line at a time seemed like a good idea so that is where the video thought came from. Every notable place I visit I will make a recording and, hey presto, we have a video that is both patriotic and an advertisement for a completely different country at the very same time. Terrific.
Some caveats:
- I may have forgot to take footage in most of the places we went to – hence the dominance of Fes airport towards the end in order to get it finished with my feet still on Moroccan territory.
- I may have forgotten the tune at various points – as is very noticeable throughout the song.
- I may have forgotten what pitch I was singing it in – I’m no musician as you can see from this. But in my defence, it’s pretty difficult to sing a song perfectly across the space of 7 days.
Otherwise, I don’t think it’s too bad.
And I am hugely indebted to my support team of Cat and Rob who without them I would looked more stupid and, well, to be honest, without them I would have never been to Morocco (kind of gatecrashed their holiday) so cheers guys!
