"La Marseillaise" vs. "The Star-Spangled Banner"

[TahitiNut]

Maybe this thought deserves some scrutiny? And consideration? :shrug:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/224

Where's Madame Defarge when we need her??

[RagingInMiami]

1. Excellent observation

And note that our anthem is written in the past tense. It is story that has already happened. It's sung in the passive voice.

Their anthem is the present tense. It's a story with an unraveling plot. It's unpredictable. It's sung in the active voice.

[RagingInMiami]

2. And when I was a kid

I used to think it was, "Jose, can you see ...."

Fucking immigrant kids in my neighborhood.

[MikeH]

4. That reminds me when I was a kid

I first encountered "La Marseillaise" as part of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture on a record my parents had when I was a kid. It reminded me of the opening line of the ditty "Pop Goes the Weasel": "All Around the Cobbler's Bench". I had no idea then that it was supposed to be part of the French national anthem.

[stopbush]

17. "Babe Ruth through the night..."

Standard word change at Yankee Stadium.

[TahitiNut]

3. Yes, the verb tense is also revealing ... as inheritors, not providers.

I have some respect for the notion that language 'programs' us. We swim in an ocean of language, rarely considering alternative ways to express the familiar. Cliches, slogans, and 'common' cultural language bites have a great deal to do with how we frame our 'reality'. On my Nth viewing of 'Casablanca' I was yet again struck by the way La Marseillaise stirs emotions, much like bagpipes. Our national anthem does nothing like it. It's about some symbol and a past - not about a better future and guarding our metaphorical ramparts.

[newswolf56]

5. A Frenchman wrote this, too:

The Internationale

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye criminals of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
and at last ends the age of cant.
Now away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise!
We'll change forthwith the old conditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

CHORUS

Then come comrades rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race. (repeat).

We peasants, artisans and others,
Enrolled amongst the sons of toil
Let's claim the earth henceforth for brothers
Drive the indolent from the soil.
On our flesh for too long has fed the raven
We've too long been the vultures prey.
But now farewell to spirit craven
The dawn brings in a brighter day.

CHORUS

No saviour from on high delivers
No trust we have in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
Ere the thieves will out with their booty
And to all give a happier lot.
Each at his forge must do his duty
And strike the iron while its hot.

CHORUS

Most younger Americans have never heard it sung. Since it was sung repeatedly by the doomed student protesters in Tienanmen Square in 1989, it is more than appropriate one of these versions is in Chinese:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/INTERNAT.html

[Hardrada]

6. I got it on a CD of anarchist and revolutionary songs

sent from the UK. Can't locate left music in the US.

[RagingInMiami]

7. You gotta love a country that gave us the Statue of Liberty

And Freedom Fries.

(actually, I think fries are really from Belgium but why should we let historical accuracies get in the way of the American mindset?)

[tocqueville]

8. Interesting.... one little explanation

there have been a lot of debate about the "impure blood" wording in the first strophe, because it could be interpreted as racism

historians explained the context of the song : racism in modern sense didn't exist at that time. Others were assholes because they wanted your land or because they didn't have the same religion, but not because they were "subhumans". Besides the fight was "white-white" and very few other races were involved and if they were, were as mercenaries from the royalist side...

the hymn was written in Strasbourg during the war against the coalition of royalist powers that wanted to overthow the young republic :

"La Marseillaise" is a song written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle at Strasbourg on April 25, 1792. Its original name is "Chant de guerre de l'Armée du Rhin" ("Marching Song of the Rhine Army") and it was dedicated to Marshall Nicolas Luckner a Bavarian-born French officer from Cham. It became the rallying call of the French Revolution and got its name because it was first sung on the streets by troops (fédérés) from Marseille upon their arrival in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseillaise

the impure blood wording has been inspired by the terror conducted in Alsace by Austrian and Swedish troops. Those good protestants had a banner representing a pregnant Virgin Mary with her belly torn apart and a bloody fetus ripped away... this was an ultimate outrage, a bit like if US troops in Iraq had a flag with Mohammed sodomized by a pig...

the impure blood is the "blue blood" of the royalists and their mercenaries


the verse

"Liberty, cherished liberty
Join the struggle with your defenders"

is still very used

the Marseillaise was forbidden during the Nazi occupation and sung by the Chinese students at Tien An Men



Rouget de l'Isle singing the Marseillaise

[TahitiNut]

15. I tend to mentally translate "impure blood" as "bad blood" ... corrupted.

While I can see how some might twist that into some kind of racist reference, I think a sensitivity to the spirit of La Marseillaise and the times (1792) negate that. After all, France has historically regional ethnic diverisities, from Bretagne to Provence and from the Basque to the Alsace. When I regard the sculpture ("La Marseillaise") on the Arc de Triomphe, which I associate with the 1792 march on Paris, I get no sense of any 'racial homgeneity' concerns.

[tocqueville]

9. another great French Song : The Partisan Song

The Partisan Song (Resistance song WWII)

Friend, do you hear the crows' dark flight over our plains?
Friend, do you hear the muffled screams of the country being shackled?
O-hay patriots, labourers and farmers, the alarm has sounded!
Tonight the enemy shall know the price of blood and tears.
Climb up the mine, come down the hills, comrades,
From the straw unhide the guns, the munitions and the grenades;
O-hay killers, with bullets and knives kill swiftly!
O-hay saboteurs, be careful with your burden, of dynamite!
It is we that break the jail bars, for our brothers,
Hate is running after us, and hunger drives us, in misery.
There are countries where people sleep in their beds and dream.
Here, see, we, we walk and we kill and we die
Here, each one of us knows what one wants, and what one does when he passes by;
Friend, if you fall, a friend emerges from the dark to take your place.
Tomorrow, black blood shall dry out in the sun on the roads
Sing, companions, for that in the night freedom listens to us.

the music can be heard here (let it load a little):

http://notre.republique.free.fr/chantdespartisans.htm

(the name of the URL is only a coincidence !!!)

don't sing that one or homeland security will come for you...

[newswolf56]

10. And this, sung with such exquisite solemnity by Leonard Cohen:

The Partisan (by Anna Marly/Hy Zaret)

When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender,
this I could not do;
I took my gun and vanished.
I have changed my name so often,
I've lost my wife and children
but I have many friends,
and some of them are with me.

An old woman gave us shelter,
kept us hidden in the garret,
then the soldiers came;
she died without a whisper.

There were three of us this morning
I'm the only one this evening
but I must go on;
the frontiers are my prison.

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we'll come from the shadows.

Les Allemands étaient chez moi,
ils me dirent, resigne-toi,
mais je n'ai pas pu;
j'ai repris mon arme.

J'ai changé cent fois de nom,
j'ai perdu femme et enfants
mais j'ai tant d'amis;
j'ai la France entière.

Un vieil homme dans un grenier
pour la nuit nous a caché,

[cyclezealot]

11. America's anthem need by America the Beautiful

There have been efforts to bring back America the Beautiful. Was not the Star Spangled Banner foisted on the US after one of the world wars? America the Beauttiful tells the world what is right about America, instead of glorifying war.
yes, it is hard to find songs of the left in the US. Some in our Democratic club had a leftist songbook, which was fun and educational to sing. The US has so many labor rallying songs that go unremembered. ?
Anyone help me out...Been awhile. What famous labor leader in the west was framed and hanged in Wyoming in the early 20th century. famous words were , ' don't mourn ....but organize.'?

[erpowers]

12. Not Glorifying War

Do you really think the "Star Spangled Banner" glorifies war? I do not think it actually glorifies war. I think it glorifies triumph, strength and the flag. It seems that Key's point is that the flag was still standing after the battle. Throughout the song he is talking about the flag and how they watched the bombing at night and in the morning with they woke up the flag was still standing. I do not think anywhere in the anthem war is glorified.

[TahitiNut]

13. I tend to prefer Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" ...

... particularly the last verse.

"Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me."


Personally, I think an anthem that exhorts participation in the preservation of our liberties is essential. Without active and dedicated participation, democracy ceases to exist.

I am, after all, a liberal.
That, I believe, makes me a revolutionary.
It's not a spectator sport.

[Dhalgren]

18. Joe Hill

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you and me
I told him, "Joe you're ten years dead."
"I never died." said he.
"I never died." said he.

[cyclezealot]

23. thanks.

how could I forget JOe Hill. Mental block.

[erpowers]

14. Think You Got It Wrong

From what I learned Key was supposedly asking someone due to his position. Key was on a boat when he wrote the poem. He may have just written the poem it the fashion of asking a question. However, from what I have learned Key was captured and watched the battle from the enemy ship. When he woke up in the morning he saw the flag was still standing and then wrote the poem, which became our national anthem.

Just like Key you really do not know if the person who wrote the French anthem actually, fought in the war that he was promoting. Even though Key was seeming to ask a question I think he actually fought in the war he was talking about. It is possible that the person who wrote the French anthem was just someone who sat down and decided to write a poem that latter became the national anthem of France. I am not anti-French I just realize that it is possible that the person who wrote it was not fighting in the war.

[TahitiNut]

16. I don't confuse poetry with journalism.

Francis Scott Key was a poet and lawyer - a wealthy member of the privileged class. As a poet, he was NOT writing a journal - he was wrting a poem, with poetic license, from the perspctive of a non-participant. Since it's poetry and not journalism, the (apocryphal?) history matters very little in the interpretation of the words.

In August 1814, Key's friend Dr. William Beanes was taken prisoner by the British army soon after its departure from Washington. Key left for Baltimore to obtain the services of Colonel John Skinner, the government's prisoner of war exchange agent. Together they sailed down the bay on a truce ship and met the British fleet. Key successfully negotiated the doctor's release, but was detained with Skinner and Beanes by the British until after the attack on Baltimore.

Key's vessel (name unknown) was 8 miles below the fort during the bombardment, under the watchful care of a British warship. It was from this site that he witnessed the British attack on Fort McHenry, after which he was inspired to write the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

It's interesting to me that he's on a "truce ship" and a non-combatant. It's interesting to me that this is during the War of 1812 ("a nice, little, gentleman's war") and not the American Revolution.

But that's not really the point, is it? :shrug: D'uh!

[RagingInMiami]

19. You didn't really expect this thread to go without a ...

guerre de flamme, did you?

[TahitiNut]

20. When a beefeater sharpens his knife near a sacred cow ...

... he must expect some contrarian remarks from Hindus and vegetarians. :evilgrin:

[TahitiNut]

21. (cough)

:kick:

[kurth]

22. "What does this horde of slaves, traitors, and plotting kings want?"

"Tremble, tyrants and traitors. The shame of all good men. Tremble!"

How a propos.

[TahitiNut]

24. Ain't it though? I think it's uncannily contemporary.

:scared:

[Paladin]

25. There's Is The Best, Ours Is The Worst

In terms of music and lyrics, I don't any country has a better anthem than "La Marseillaise." And on the same bases, I don't think any country has a worse anthem than this country's. We should have replaced it years ago.....

[TahitiNut]

26. It's a drinking song. That's right up Junior's ...

:evilgrin:

[Blue_Tires]

27. interesting

i never thought of the two that way...