COMMENT: Forget the date, change the anthem

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By HARRY CLARKE | COMMENT

THOSE bloody Kiwis with their superior footy team.

The All Blacks are leagues above the Wallabies, with more class than a first date pub counter meal and more depth than a Gold Coast gutter at low tide.

The Wallabies can surprise us with a Bledisloe match win on the odd occasion, however you can usually count on the All Blacks to teach us a lesson in rugby union whenever a Trans-Tasman test is played.

But rugby aside, I’m more envious of New Zealanders before the game even kicks off.

Their national anthem is brilliant, sung in two languages with such passion that it almost brings the house down, even when the match is played in an Australian stadium.

It’s the same when the French play.

Sitting in front of the television, I’m honestly more likely to start singing along with that rousing refrain “Aux armes citoyens, Formez vos bataillons” than I am with “In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia Fair“.

What do those lyrics even mean? The song is lame. In that pointless second verse it says “To make this Commonwealth of ours renowned of all the lands“. Clichéd and cringeworthy.

Aside from boring references to “golden soil” and our home being “girt by sea”, the song doesn’t invoke any imagery of Australia’s natural, cultural and historical beauty.

Advance Australia Fair is written in the obscure musical key of B-flat major and bugger all Aussies can sing it remotely in tune.

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After the crowd has waited through that droning instrumental intro, most people are too shy to put any heart into their vocal cords because what comes out might sound like fingernails scratching a chalkboard.

I’m like most people who, when the duty arises to sing Advance Australia Fair, merely mouth the words quietly for fear of being that lone, embarrassingly off-tune voice that can be heard above the rest by anyone nearby.

The Kiwis, the French and seemingly those of most other nationalities aren’t awkward about it.

They all love their anthem, and everyone sings with such gusto that the odd screeching cat amongst the crowd is drowned out by the stirring sound of cohesive patriotism.

There’s one rendition of Advance Australia Fair that, to me, is memorable. Tina Arena crushed it when she sung the song a cappella on the Champs-Élysées in 2011, when Cadel Evans won the Tour de France.

But Tina can’t be there every time and therefore I’ll always find our national song pretty uninspiring.

I believe I’m far from being the only one who doesn’t get around it.

But what song does justice to Australia’s natural, cultural and historical beauty, and is also a terrific tune of which even the most musically and vocally challenged can produce a fair rendition?

The answer is as obvious as my poor singing ability will be when I’m forced to sing Advance Australia Fair on Australia Day.

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The song I Am Australian, of course, by The Seekers, in the simple musical key of C.

No offence to the Scottish composer Peter Dodds McCormick, who wrote our national anthem in 1878, but I think Bruce Woodley did a much better job when he penned these lyrics in 1987:

I came from the dream time
From the dusty red soil plains
I am the ancient heart
The keeper of the flame
I stood upon the rocky shores
I watched the tall ships come
For forty thousand years I've been
The first Australian

I'm a teller of stories
I'm a singer of songs
I am Albert Namatjira
And I paint the ghostly gums
I'm Clancy on his horse
I'm Ned Kelly on the run
I'm the one who waltzed Matilda
I am Australian

These are just two verses of I Am Australian, but every verse in that song is as patriotic and poetic as the next.

It covers everything and everyone, without even using the word “girt”:

We are one but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We share a dream and sing with one voice
I am, you are, we are Australian

I think if we had such a terrific song as our national anthem, Australians would be much closer to singing with one voice.

I don’t know what licensing, copyright or royalties arrangements need to be sorted out for this to happen, but someone needs to get it done ASAP.

To me that seems like a simpler first step towards Australian cultural unity than changing the date of Australia Day or voting on an Indigenous Voice.