The Anthem of Ankh-Morpork - music

[RathDarkblade]

So this morning I was finishing reading a book that mentioned "Land of Hope and Glory", and quoted some of the lyrics, to show how outdated they were, and wonder why people still sing about "God who made thee mighty, make thou mightier still" etc... and wonder if anyone even takes lyrics like that seriously anymore. (I suppose too many people do, otherwise how do you explain Brexit?)

Anyway, that immediately reminded me of "We Can Rule You Wholesale", because I could imagine the first few bars of the Anthem of Ankh-Morpork playing ... but then it segues into "Land of Hope and Glory, mother of the Free..."

Or, the next time you listen to "Land of Hope and Glory" on the BBC Proms, you can sing "When Dragons Belch and Hippos Flee" instead.

Also, compare and contrast these lyrics:

Morporkia!
Morporkia!
Morporkia rules the day!

With these ones:

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves!

I think you'll find they're interchangeable, too (that is, you can sing "Morporkia" to the tune of "Rule Britannia" - except change the pronunciation slightly, like this:

Morrrr-por-kee-ya!
Morpork-ya rules the day!)

I can't help but think of Agnes Nitt, during her time at the Opera House, singing this anthem (in harmony with herself, of course) before a performance. Or, since I am a baritone-bass, I would love to see (or hear) a male version of it. Perhaps Ridcully the Brown bellowing it at the top of his voice before a Foot-the-Ball match, and the rest of the faculty mumbling along, while a few Feegle substitute the words with "Feegles wha hae!" etc.

Anyway, since I'm a scallywag to have brought this up, I wrote yet another anthem - at least partially - for Al-Khali:

Land of dates and cous cous, oh, how I love thee!
Hot desert around you making all of us free!

Days hot as an oven, nights freezing cold;
if you can survive this, you will never feel old!

Hail to thee, Prince Cadram, wisest of walis!
With our D'reg allies, who needs enemies?

(Told you I was a scallywag. Sorry-not-sorry to Elgar) ;-P

 

[Tonyblack]

Terry was pleased with the anthem - "We can rule you. Wholesale" that he sang it to a bunch of us at the last Clarecraft camping event.

 

[Molokov]

Here's the official BBC performance of Ankh-Morpork's Anthem:

Yes, it definitely has resemblance to Rule Britania...

 

[RathDarkblade]

Yes, I linked to the same video in my post too. I did that, so everyone can replay the video, refresh their memories as to how it starts ... and then segue to "Land of Hope and Glory". The music has a certain resemblance - I suspect the composer was parodying both.

Incidentally, I find it very amusing that so many people take "Rule, Britannia!" so literally, and think it's a patriotic song ... because it's not. I'm sure everyone here knows this, but when Arne wrote the song in 1740, "Britannia" definitely didn't rule the waves, and was competing with the Dutch and the Spanish. Hence the chorus was exhorting "Britannia" to try harder (note the comma and the exclamation mark - it's a command, not a statement of fact).

A century later or so, by the 1840s, Britannia did rule the waves and didn't need to be told to. The Victorians took out the punctuation and added an extra "s" to "rule", so it became: "Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!", and became a flag-waving, muscle-flexing exercise of patriotism. (The Crimean War, and smaller colonial wars, probably added to this).

Flash forward another century to 1940 and World War II, and Britannia was falling behind Japan and Germany, so the song became a rallying cry, similar to Churchill's speeches. (I'm sure he found it convenient - and I'm sure Thatcher did, too, during the Falklands).

So I'm not sure why it's considered so patriotic, especially now that "the waves" aren't ruled by any nation in particular.

I also noticed that on multiple occasions of the Proms, Bryn Terfel sang the third verse in Welsh. On other occasions, the arrangement was altered to make it less war-like - back in 2002, Leonard Slatkin, the conductor, publicly criticised it. It's a wonderful thing to celebrate who you are and have faith in your country, he said, but he wasn't entirely comfortable with the militaristic angle, and I agree.

What do you think?