Songs of the Land

Revolutionary anthems, or songs that grow out of a war, may be stirring emotionally, but because they represent a limited window in time, their content quickly becomes clichéd. If they continue to stir emotion, it may be at a cost of trapping citizens in a bygone moment: of maintaining them in a state of arousal for battle.

Anthems that extol a country’s natural beauty are more long lasting, because geography changes more slowly than history. It is also because nature evokes feelings more sublime and transcendent than the adrenaline and ego that accompanies a military victory. Today we’re going to look at songs of the land, and compare them with songs of conflict.

The US national anthem, is a song of battle The battle invoked in the opening verse of The Star-Spangled Banner is not the Revolutionary War but the War of 1812-14.

Alex Muir’s The Maple Leaf Forever, once English speaking Canada’s most popular national song, follows the same pattern from the perspective of British imperialism. The first verse invokes the “Conquest of Québec by James Wolfe in 1759:

In days of yore from Britain’s shore
Wolfe, the dauntless hero came
And planted firm Britannia’s flag
On Canada’s fair domain …

The second verse fast-forwards 70 years to the War of 1812:

At Queenstown Heights and Lundy’s Lane
Our brave fathers side
For freedom, homes, and loved ones dear
Firmly stood and nobly died …

There is a limited progress in 70 years. The first verse celebrates the triumph of the British over the French—something not inclined to excite French Canadians. The second goes on to describe their joint stand against a common foe: the Americans! Both verses, both songs, keep singers trapped in bygone battles.

Another patriotic songs deals with the outbreak of the Second World War from the viewpoint of a Fortress America still deep in isolationism:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free.
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:
God Bless America …

In response to Irving Berlin’s God Bless America, Woody Guthrie wrote This Land is Your Land…. Berlin’s 12 line ends with a reference to mountains, prairies and oceans. Guthrie’s focuses entirely on his country’s natural beauty, substituting geography for history as the basis of his love of country.

The simplicity and popularity of Guthrie’s ballad led to many imitations, some satirical, some more serious. A Canadian version sprung up in the 1960’s replacing “diamond deserts” with “golden beaches” and home grown names in the chorus:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From Buena Vista to Vancouver Island
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake waters
This land was made for you and me.

One has been called an “alien anthem” because it was composed by a German deportee from England, Fritz Grundland, who performed it for fellow internees at a detention camp in Canada during World War II. It has become a favorite at Scouts, Guides and summer camps, partly because it can be sung in 105 seconds:

My country is my cathedral
The northern sky its dome
They all call it Canada
But I call it home:
The mountains, the lakes, the valleys,
Are friends I have known.
They all call it …

Another, classic geographic is Oscar Brand’s This Land of Ours, also known by the preceding line of the chorus “Something to sing about.” It is considerably more complex than either Gurthrie’s or Grundland’s songs, with longer verses that detail different regions of the country, and held together by a trans-Canadian, pan-Canadian chorus:

From the Vancouver Island to the Alberta highland
Cross the prairies, the lakes to Ontario’s towers
From the sound of Mount Royal’s chimes, out to the Maritimes
Something to sing about, this land of ours.

The story of this song is a mirror image of Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land. Brand’s was written for Canada and became popular here. Brand himself was born in Winnipeg and later moved to New York. After become a mainstay of the American folk music movement, he wrote an American version of the song.

There is one way these two songs are eerily similar. While both This Land is Your Land and This Land of Ours abound in local names, neither mentions the proper name of the country they are singing about. Both “America” and “Canada” were becoming patriotic clichés, and both composers were eager to avoid any taint of canned goods.

As a result, both chose to evoke the spirit of the countries they were celebrating, and let this speak to subtly enhance the whole, rather than indulging in jingoism and slogans. To paraphrase Holy Writ, “The slogan kills, but the spirit gives life.”

There are a number of other national songs that are powerful without ever mentioning their countries by name. Tomorrow we’ll look at more of these odes and epics.