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Who Will Save ‘God Save the Queen’?

Back in September, when I interviewed Alex Marshall, the author of a world tour of national anthems called Republic or Death!, he told me the following about “God Save the Queen,” the national anthem of the United Kingdom (and, by default, the anthem of England, which doesn’t have an official one):

There’s almost too many reasons not to like “God Save the Queen.” … When you hear it, you can’t get excited about it. And, the other big issue: It just has absolutely nothing about Britain today. All it says is, “We have a monarch, and we’d really like her to reign for a long time.” … [People] get far more excited singing songs with titles like “Land of Hope and Glory.” Or there’s one called “Jerusalem,” which is about “England’s green and pleasant land.” And those songs actually speak to the country and people’s sense of hope. Those mean so much more. If the U.K. had a different anthem I might get more excited about it.

The U.K. may not get a different anthem anytime soon, but there’s hope for England yet. (Scotland and Wales have their own anthems, Northern Ireland does not.) Yesterday, a bill to decide the future of an English anthem was introduced in Parliament and will come up for debate in March.

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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.