National Anthems of the World: The Beautiful, Boring and Bonkers

national anthems the anime op of a country [Music] the introduction on the world stage that declares yes i'm a place with a flag please don't take me over they're made in many different shapes and forms not literally considering this is just music music has no confinable shape to speak of but you got a common rule each nation has a song even somalia has a song and it doesn't have a country you see i enjoy the general discussion of anything relating to a country's image the flag the name the border and especially the anthem they're really face value stuff that nobody cares about but i care about it and i know you do too sometimes late at night after a few drinks i listen to national anthems for some reason along with other patriotic songs or sea shanties and i wanted to take all that wasted time and do something with it originally i was going to rank every single national anthem that exists but that led to a much longer project than i or anyone would really care about but i still collected a lot of worldly knowledge from my travels and wanted to talk about national anthems so i'm going to do it in this format descending from the mountain rising from the great library to answer your fine questions and just talk about anthems in the world let's just mix it up how did the concept of anthems start anthems as concepts are tied hand-in-hand to the nation-state so they didn't exist until the idea of nationalism and the nation-state did when states were established and the people as a whole were a part of the nation not just under a king already popular common songs were adapted as the rallying cry of the people the french anthem is a good example of this it was a war cry against the old ways of monarchy and while other anthems at the time did exist it wasn't until the rise of nationalism in independence movements when anthems became a staple of creating a new state which is why some of the oldest aren't even from europe they're from latin america the revolutions of boulevard didn't just cast off the spanish but expanded the idea set in the united states in revolutionary france the idea of the nation-state people didn't simply exist as subjects under land-holding monarchs the people were themselves a nation and what better way to show everyone's united than a theme song now this is just one example as sometimes a national anthem is created for the exact opposite purpose an anthem not of the people but the royalty speaking of which why does liechtenstein's anthem sound so similar to the uk's [Music] so what's the deal with this did lichtenstein just copy the british well yes but so did everyone else in the 19th century the origins of god save the king is unknown but we know it did become popular in britain around the mid-1700s originally just for the royal family to announce they were there yet by the mid-1800s several european kingdoms were using some variation of the tune small german states sweden greece russia ratatouille kingdom norway hawaii the german empire itself and even the united states unofficially before we got our actual anthem was britain just that darn popular that everyone wanted to emulate them no of course not there was no geopolitics or diplomatic reason why god save the king became so popular the answer is simply everyone just liked the melody so darn much it was simple to sing but also pleasant to the ears and apparently nobody had ever heard of music before so it took the continent by storm over the span of a century it was adopted and translated by various musicians nobody really had a problem taking the anthem as their own because it wasn't the national anthem of britain yet it was the anthem of royalty you might think of it as a remnant before nationalism as what made a nation state began to be defined over the late 19th century the tomb just fell out of favor except in liechtenstein and britain so in short because god save the queen slash king's laps so other nations adopted it sunglasses emoji which anthem is the most upbeat aruba sitting on the beach drinking something taking in the sun there is no lyrics about war or defending the homeland no need for any of that this is a place smack dab in the middle of the ocean and it knows it it doesn't even have an orchestra it just needs a guitar some drums and whatever that string thing is that goes it makes me happy and it should make you happy unless [Music] [Applause] makes you happy then uh we got different tastes i guess has there ever been a national anthem that needed to be changed because it was just that bad the most famous example of an anthem needing to be changed or altered was the modern day german anthem yes germany does still have the anthem that it did during the nazi regime though the anthem was before the nazis dating back to the 1840 revolutions that spurred german nationalism before being put onto the sidelines for [Music] it was used by the weimar republic and just sort of stuck so why do they still use it today because it's so much fun chan get it however they officially only use the third stanza and not the whole song the whole song has some choice words germany germany above all above all in the world this verse is always associated with the nazis to modern day germans and hilariously sometimes foreign singers pull a whoopsie and sing the first stanza instead of the third not understanding the tremendous offense they've just committed german women german loyalty german wine and german song shall retain in the world the second stanza was meant to mostly be sung in pubs or bars so singing about how great their women and wine are fits well with a revolutionary song but it's hilarious as an official state anthem i do wish they'd bring back this part that said when two-thirds of the song can't really be used germany is just stuck to the third which talks about the boring peace and prosperity stuff are there similarities between regions there are similarities which wouldn't be a shock as there's similarities between nations while each anthem is a special unique snowflake in its own way after listening to all of them you really notice a pattern first the americas most of the anthems in the new world are remarkably similar anthems either involve war dying or revolution via revolutions against spain like south america revolutions against the upper class like cuba or revolution slash war against the british like the us in fact one of the few that breaks this mold is canada who just sings about itself and the land and the moose this is a general theme of upper latitude nations canada scandinavia all reflect the same idea in their lyrics our nation is cold and we're largely at peace scandinavia is a style in itself slow and gentle always accompanied by a very heavenly chorus the further south into the mediterranean you go the faster the tempo goes more of a march less of that angelic softness spain portugal and italy for example they kind of have that flurry to them where you can just imagine hands being wildly thrown around while singing the british isles are split culturally already and that's reflective in their anthems scotland's flower of scotland is a little bit different from ireland's anthem the further west that you go the more celtic it gets central in eastern europe is what i'd like to call the bland region there really isn't a weight to these songs nothing to really make him stand out we're all just going through the motions the balkans all involve violence defending the homeland the culture and the people all of their anthems are just insults towards each other the arab world anthems are much more reliant on the lyrics not so much the actual instruments so these anthems live or die entirely on the voice quality they can be a chant or flowing all of them mention being an arab at least once africa wildly differs depending on the history of the nation and its location the further north you go the more arabic the anthem sounds of course but also so does that die for the country mentality the best example is simply between the more arabic sudan and the sub-saharan south sudan [Music] considering decolonization only ended 50 years ago they had a greater range of musical styles to go with so you really don't know what you're going to get between every single nation going into west africa ghana's anthem has almost a pop music sound to it while togo or guineas is slower and kind of reflective nigeria on the other hand is bombastic terrible green screen and the heavens themselves erupt as nigeria plays football east africa as a whole is more focused on the orchestra ethiopia is a great example of this as is tanzania but it also has the wacky ones uganda sounds like the ending of a 90s disney movie [Music] and mozambique can be either sung as a chant or like a music video for marc antony while stylistically all these sound different the general message is similar united africa overthrowing colonialism friendship unity we're all happy together colonialism is kind of referenced in passing though it's not the main focal point like the anthems of latin america the general rule for asia is the further east you go the more peaceful the melody is so we begin in azerbaijan not the most calming but then we go past iran afghanistan pakistan mongolia and finally we end up at japan where everything's just a nice piece oceania as a whole is either traditional polynesian music or anglos australia is pure anglo while new zealand's anthem is half maori half english while there are outliers and not every single nation is going to follow this general theme which anthem do you think is most fitting for its country while i can't say what i think would be the most fitting for the major countries like if i lost all memories and stood in the center of manchester would i hear god save the queen and think yeah this this fits but on nations i've never heard the anthem for before there are surprises just from general ideas beforehand for example would you think of the democratic republic of the congo and think dragon quest music let's go on an adventure child soldier in terms of most fitting for a country there are a few i've never heard of spain's before but then i hear it and think yeah that's [Music] spain rico sounds like the opening to a telenovela [Music] when you think of china you hear that ominous chant and think it'd be perfect playing in the morning at a concentration camp most fitting however takes a special spot the bahamas yes this is a real real anthem it sounds like it'd be an ending song to a one piece episode [Music] are there any anthems you'd swap um yeah i'd say indonesia and poland i don't think either would be truly more fitting but it confused the average person who already gets the flags messed up please consider mentioning the ottoman empire's national anthem it sounds similar to the galactic empires the ottomans didn't have an anthem until the 19th century but yeah you can just picture this playing as the death star appears over the horizon to blow up armenia i mean alderaan this reminds me actually a lot of nations have had national anthems that no longer exist we should remember the anthems that have fallen the chinese before the revolution with their peaceful and calming song [Music] you didn't even try rhodesia russia did have a different anthem between 1991 and 2000. this was russia's attempt to be democratic before the rise of putin and who didn't change the anthem back to the soviet anthem in 2000 while it sounds nice it's also associated with terrible times by your average russian the biggest lost however is east germany's while the west went back to the east germany created a whole new anthem risen from ruins i feel even hopeful for the future and i know how it ends say what you will about the eastern bloc or how it actually turned out but i actually enjoy this anthem much more than the current one when they reunified the east should have taken the west economics but the west should have kept this anthem [Music] most overrated national anthem i don't know if there is an overrated anthem anthems aren't like pop artists where they have an obvious audience they have more fame than they have talent while i don't think these are overrated anthems nor should they be replaced i think the us and uk have better patriotic songs than their national anthems [Music] battle hymn of the republic sounds like it's not just a moral crusade but a literal one as well when i hear this i think of what america was actually supposed to be this is that shining city on a hill it's america want a smoother anthem boom makes me think of vast cornfields in the span of the us [Music] or america by ray charles elvis presley's america trilogy where he sings about dixie oh now oh god save the queen is an old aging song that spread everywhere in the 19th century but now it's kind of tired and nobody is really enthusiastic about it so it's pretty well suited to the uk but i'm sorry rule britannia is a far better song and always has been it isn't about some king or queen it's about britain itself and what it's always been able to do rule the waves what's your spirit national anthem like a spirit animal but for national anthems [Music] you

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Keywords: National Anthems, national anthem, The National Anthems of the World: The Beautiful boring and bonkers, the national anthems of the world, world anthems, europe anthems, asia anthems, africa anthems, american songs, alternatehistoryhub, alternate history, alternatehistoryhub national, alternatehistoryhub national anthems, countries of the world, united states anthem, canada national anthem, usa anthem, britain anthem, german anthem, national anthem history, country songs

Id: 28fogngOMXE

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021