Let Us Discuss Options For an English National Anthem

Fun news for fans of England, as England is potentially getting a new national anthem. That's good: the only time the national anthem ever gets played or sung is before England rugby games, whenever Lewis Hamilton wins a Grand Prix, or whenever the EDL are smashing up a provincial town they consider to have 'too many mosques' in it, i.e. the three dirt-worst events in the calendar year, but still, "God Save the Queen" is getting stale. We need a shake up. We need something new.

Also, vitally, we need something bloody English, because Scotland has its national anthem (a load of men in novelty tam o' shanters repeatedly shouting "TUNNOCKS") and Wales has its own, too (Brassed Off-lite all-male choir shaking off the remnants of that afternoon's prostate exam by welcoming Songs of Praise to Cardiff), and even Ireland has one ([BRACKETED JOKE DELETED ON LEGAL ADVICE]). "God Save the Queen" is, technically, the national anthem for the entirety of the UK – no matter how much the outer rim hates the Queen and all she represents – so there's no specific song for England.

Aside: it's very hard to care about this sort of thing, isn't it.

In part I feel responsible for this, because the MP for Chesterfield Toby Perkins is the man who put this forward, and I grew up in Chesterfield, and I just think: why would you be proud of living in England if you lived in Chesterfield? The best thing about Chesterfield are the roads out. The entire industry, since the factories collapsed, is based on two big Post Offices. The fanciest restaurant is still quite often the Frankie & Benny's. The football club's former stadium was used to film The Damned United because it was the only place still fucked up and shabby enough to pass as being from the 1970s. People say this word there without irony: "duck". People get excited by the big Caffé Nero in the centre of town. We used to have a famous tramp until he was gravely injured in a terrifying hammer attack.

But enough of all that! England is great, isn't it! Let's celebrate it by sketching out potential national anthem options for us all to sing begrudgingly along to when an athlete no one cares about wins!

Thing about "Wonderwall" is: everyone knows the lyrics to "Wonderwall". Here's a lyric from "God Save the Queen": "Thy choicest gifts in store / On her be pleased to pour". Did you know that? Lyrics evocative of a corner store newsagent pouring a dusty old bottle of Jägermeister over the Queen's midriff and doing belly shots off her. That, in the national anthem. A disgrace.

And yet: imagine an entire stadium of football fans, excessively drunk, 1995-era Madchester haircuts, Sambas and Stone Island, little John Lennon-style circular sunglasses, all shouting "MAYBEEEEEEEE" in chorus, the pub sing-along to end all pub sing-alongs. Awful. Awful. But England in a microcosm.

The original proposal for this new anthem offers out a public vote of old classic songs and newly-penned-for-the-purposes numbers, which just puts me in dreadful mind of our doomed attempts to win the Eurovision Song Contest in recent years. It's the BBC's fault: a few years ago, the BBC started taking Eurovision seriously and so started these weird little preliminary rounds where they took X Factor runoff and an Andrew Lloyd Webber-penned song and put them together on live TV to form a sort of subpar monstrous whole, and then packaged the whole thing off to Europe to go and get nil point just like every other attempt every other year, and in a way that's more embarrassing: we try hard to fail at a sort of acid trip school talent show, instead of just doing the bare minimum and failing. There's dignity in failure without effort. There is no dignity in sending Daz Sampson to compete on our behalf.

That's when Katie Price had one of her doomed attempts at a singing career, during her transitional stage from Jordan to Katie Price, and I put it to you that Katie Price (Jordan) – "Not Just Anybody" is the most English song in existence. Truly: is there anything more indicative of modern England than Katie Price – horse-liking former breast model and monotone mother-of-five – singing a song with nothing but her hubris and the air in her lungs, and failing altogether at it? Who really asked for Katie Price to be as part of our lives as she is? And yet: in many ways, she is more visible and renowned than the Queen. She is as iconic. For a certain subset of people – unironic Loose Women viewers, mainly – she is everything they want to be and more. Katie Price is very important in the overarching cultural hegemony of modern England. This song – which I defy anyone to listen to all the way through in one go – is, by extension, the song of England. It is our siren, screaming at the sailors.

Can we rewatch Band Aid 20 for a moment, from the year of our Lord 2004:

Yes: that is him off The Darkness and Joss Stone singing into the same looped microphone. That is Sugababes 2.0, before the Mutya implosion. Busted, with their haircuts, sharing a bridge with Dizzee Rascal. Robbie Williams doing a Liam Gallagher mic lean. Very 2004, this. Pure, distilled, 2004. Now imagine if we recorded a menagerie national anthem now: Ed Sheeran beatboxing on his acoustic guitar, One Direction trotting out to do their thousand-yard-stare-plus-harmony-plus-tender-wave-goodbye bit, Stormzy saying "shut up"; and then it gets weirder, KSI elbowing in saying "like and subscribe", Katie Hopkins wagging her finger and saying "shan't let them in", Charlotte from Geordie Shore doing a simultaneous belch, fart and fitness DVD. All these flare out icons, doomed to soon die, to be looked back on as dust in the cultural molasses. Will we remember KSI in ten years? What about Jess Glynne? I can barely remember her now. Proudlock from Made in Chelsea? Karen Danczuk? Jessie J? The only way we will remember them is if we let them do the national anthem in one take during a three-hour session at Abbey Road studios.

"Adele!" people say, excitedly. "Adele, Adele, Adele Adele Adele!" Don't we all love Adele! She's so fucking real, Adele, with her laugh like a filthy nan, the kind of nan who has a story about how she knew the Krays and you suspect deep down that she fucked one, your nan, your rough London nan, her laugh distilled into the body of a down-to-earth English recording artist called Adele. Adele! With her songs about break-ups and exes. We all love to relate, don't we, to Adele! "Adele," your mum says. "Have you heard that new Adele CD?" Of course you have! Because everyone in England owns every single Adele CD, including single releases, B-sides and all. "Can you get tickets to see Adele?" Your mum doesn't understand the concept of concerts selling out within a minute, but she still wants tickets to Adele! "She smokes cigarettes, you know," your mum is saying. "She's so real." Adele, smoking a cigarette, shouting "I FACKIN' LOVE TABS" and sticking the Vs up to the assembled paparazzi. England! Adele! ADELE, ADELE, ADELE ADELE ADELE. ADELE. ADELE. What if the national anthem was by Adele? Wouldn't that be good? Actually: change.org petition to change the word 'good' to 'Adele'! ADELE.

It's probably going to be "Jerusalem".

@joelgolby

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