We all know them, but how often do we think about them: the lyrics to our national anthem? In The Worst Songs in the World: The Terrible Truth about National Anthems (Dundurn Press, 2024), author David Pate (class of 2023) looks at anthems around the world from every imaginable angle and comes up with a terrible truth: they’re violent, racist, sexist, war-mongering tunes that do far more to divide people than unite them. 

But do we think about that as we stand at attention and spew forth words we learned as children and have sung for years without question? In some cases, maybe; in others, not at all.

Think about the Canadian national anthem: “O Canada, our home and native land/True patriot love, in all thy sons’ command …” Or, as some have suggested: “O Canada, our home on native land/True patriot love, in all of us command …” Then there’s the most recent controversy, brought about by US President Donald Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty, which prompted chanteuse Chantal Kreviazuk at a recent hockey game to tweak the same words to “True patriot love that only us command.“

And what about “God save our land”? I’m an atheist, as are a growing number of Canadians; why would I beseech god to save our land? Besides, as one of the most multi-ethnic, multi-faith countries in the world, even for those who believe in one or more gods, which of those many gods should we, as a collective, appeal to?

Of course, I’d had some of these thoughts long before I read Pate’s thoroughly researched and often humorously written tome, but he’s covered the topic in far more detail than I imagined possible, reporting things like: 

• Most anthems have many more verses than are typically sung at public events because if they were, the anthem could go on for too long—in the case of Greece’s anthem, at 158 stanzas, nearly an hour. 
• The lyrics to some anthems were abandoned after a significant change in power or politics, such as the death of Franco in Spain; other nations with wordless anthems are Kosovo and Bosnia, both due to divisive civil wars, and the tiny nation of San Marino—who knows why? 
• That copyright on national anthems has become a serious legal issue in countries as diverse and widespread as Kenya, Uganda, Barbados, and South Korea; 
• That some national anthems, such as the Republic of Ireland’s, started as songs for outlawed rebel movements but now demand that people stand at attention for them, even though they refer to violently defeating a head of state who may be alive and present when the song is being performed.

Yet for all the contradictions and concerns with national anthems, the question of how to address the issues anthems raise is fraught with challenges. As Pate explains in a chapter called “A Kinder, Gentler Way”: 

When you remove all the anthems that feature religion or violence or both, you’re left with fewer than forty songs. Take out the ones that are sexist (by honouring only sons and fathers) or describe their country as a Fatherland or Motherland, and you are down to a handful of anthems that are non-violent, non-sectarian, and non-sexist. Out of the 193 full UN members, just thirteen have anthems that meet that criteria. And three of them have no lyrics. 

Think about that. Only ten countries in the world have national anthems that meet the kind of basic criteria that we’d expect from an elementary school play. And even some of those are problematic.

But is anyone doing anything about the issues? Apparently, the Swiss tried to by staging a national competition beginning in 2013. By 2015, they came up with a winner that satisfied all the parameters—a song the Swiss government promptly put in a drawer, where it has remained ever since. 

Do we need national anthems? Such things didn’t even exist until relatively recently—Saturday September 28, 1745 to be precise, as one of many interesting stories in the book explains—although something like the Maori Haka could be seen as akin to a national anthem. 

For a subject I’d never given much thought to over the years, the question of national anthems is full of issues. And David Pate, who unfortunately and unexpectedly passed away before Worst Songs was published, has raised them in ways that are far more entertaining than any national anthem I’ve ever heard—except for Jimi Hendrix’s version of Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock.

Now that was an entertaining version of a national anthem!

Other interesting perspectives on global history and culture:

The Heart of Homestay: Creating Meaningful Connections When Hosting International Students, by Jennifer Robin Wilson.

Press Enter to Continue: Scribes from Babylon to Silicon, by Joan Francuz.