Thread: Indonesian Natioal Anthem

I don't remember hearing the national anthem at school in Oz but then again I didn't pay much attention to anything at school :lol: I haven't heard the Indo anthem either. Filipinos stand to attention for their national anthem at the cinema before the movie starts which is not suprising as they are so fiercely patriotic.

I have to admit I haven't heard the national anthem. How do Indonesians feel about it? Is it a song they are proud of?

I think so.

Some national anthems are too long for some people to remember all of the words, or, they're often such boring songs few get overly-excited...apart from "Hey, that sounds like my national anthem - I come from there - I must be proud". Anybody heard a reggae version of "God Save The Queen"? Or a house music mix? (The closest to something like this was The Sex Pistol's punk version.)

I remember them playing the national anthem when I was in school in Australia, but I am not sure they still do that.

As a very young displaced person ("refugee") in Australia during the 1950s, I was struggling to learn English, spoke Lithuanian, (my mother tongue), German and a bit of Russian.

In those days, as school students, we often had to sing the Australian national anthem, which was "God Save The Queen". For many years, (as I found out later), there was one particular word I didn't quite get right. Just mumbled my way through it.

"God Save Our noble Queen" always sounded like "God Save Our Gnome for Queen". When I learned what a gnome is, the anthem didn't make any (more) sense to me.

If you went to the pictures in those days, (movie theaters), everybody had to stand up while the national anthem was played first. Not any more - thankfully.

Today, most Australians do not know all of the words of their current anthem. Even elected politicians start mumbling halfway through the second verse.

New wave Indonesians, with their fledgling stabs at western-style democracy, benefit from a national song that most can relate to. Music is both a powerful force and universal "language", certainly nothing to be sneezed at for uniting people in common causes. Music is everywhere - some people don't hear it because they don't listen.

Perhaps ironically, in the end, I went on to study for and obtained university degrees in English Literature and Language. My early "gnome" mystery might have been a catalyst.

I've still to meet a real-life gnome, but I've met several dwarfs and midgets. Lovely people, all of them.

:mrgreen:

Speaking only from the people and kids in my house, they all seem rather patriotic when the national anthem is played, the kids sometimes sing it when we are driving in the car.
As for the Aussie national anthem, I couldn't wait for it to change as I hated the way the Queen was central to it all. What do they change it with, a bloody song that nobody knows the word to. it has 3 verses I think, but nobody knows more than 1,and it has the strangest phrase of any song I know, girt by sea????????

Does "girt by sea" have anything to do with gnomes?
"Encircled gnomes", perhaps?

...a bloody song that nobody knows the word to...

I used to know Advance Australia Fair when I was a busker in Sydney and Melbourne. It never went down very well, but then again, I was never a Joan Baez.

Got many more coins with stuff like Waltzing Matilda, What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor, various Bob Dylan songs and bawdy Irish and Scottish ditties. Oh, and some good 'ol jug-band music.

There were still people singing Kumbaya and other dreadful stuff. I never stooped that far, but admit to doing "The Old Bark Hut", sometimes...

:D

Yeah, good one, I liked your piece about he little people. By the way, what is the attraction with garden gnomes??

By the way, what is the attraction with garden gnomes?

None whatsoever.

A reference to:
"God Save Our Gnome For Queen"
which I mentioned earlier.

:D

Soryy, I didn't mean you. I meant people in general who keep the little blighters :D :D