Neil Young’s Americana: God Save The Queen / My Country Tis of Thee

The folk song collective unsconscious

Neil Young’s album, Americana features Neil Young and Crazy Horse cover versions of 11 classic Americana folk songs that many of us grew up singing: Oh Susannah, Clementine, Tom Dula, Gallows Pole, Get A Job, Travel On, High Flyin’ Bird, Jesus’ Chariot, This Land Is Your Land, Wayfarin’ Stranger, and God Save The Queen. Or, I should say, we grew up singing the sanitized versions of many of these songs, which are considerably richer and darker in their original lyrics, as Young sings them.

You might wonder why an album of Americana includes “God Save The Queen,” the national anthem of the country whose yoke the United States threw off over 200 years ago. Well, for one thing, “Americana” as an idea or regional identifier includes all of North America, not just the U.S., and as a Canadian Young grew up singing “God Save the Queen” every day in school. In the U.S., of course, our national anthem is “The Star Spangled Banner,” but prior to 1931 the national anthem of the United States was “My Country Tis of Thee,” sung to the tune of, you guessed it, “God Save The Queen.”

Neil Young ends Americana with his version of  “God Save The Queen,” below, which morphs half way through into “My Country Tis of Thee,” the vintage footage along with the lyrics shifting to a decidedly different set of national archetypes. For England, the images are about authority, tradition, pomp and circumstance; for the Americas, they are about freedom, liberty, manifest destiny, and rugged individualism. Together, song + video, it makes a wonderful backhanded compliment our British cousins, a  fitting American tribute song for the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee that occurred around the time of this album’s release, celebrating her 60th year as reigning monarch of Britain.

You can watch a long video on the home page of the Neil Young website that features all the songs on the album, with fantastic vintage film footage used throughout. And check out this Fresh Air interview with Neil Young where he talks all about this project.

Time for a little Americana history

Here’s a little background history of these two famous songs, from Wikipedia, followed by the lyrics to the two songs presented side-by-side, so you can sing along at home and compare and contrast:

God Save the Queen

“God Save the Queen” (alternatively “God Save the King”) is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The words and title are adapted to the gender of the current monarch, e.g. replacing “King” with “Queen”, “he” with “she”, and so forth when a queen reigns. It is the de facto British national anthem and of some British territories.

My Country, ‘Tis of Thee

“My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” also known as “America,” is an American patriotic song, whose lyrics were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The melody used is the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” arranged by Thomas Arne and used by many members of the Commonwealth of Nations. The song served as a de facto national anthem of the United States before the adoption of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official anthem in 1931.

Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” in 1831, while a student at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. His friend Lowell Mason had asked him to translate the lyrics in some German school songbooks or to write new lyrics. A melody in Muzio Clementi’s Symphony No. 3 caught his attention. Rather than translating the lyrics from German, Smith wrote his own American patriotic hymn to the melody completing the lyrics in thirty minutes.

Smith gave Mason the lyrics he had written and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831, at a children’s Independence Day celebration at Park Street Church in Boston. First publication of “America” was in 1832.

God Save the Queen

My Country Tis of Thee

1 God save our gracious Queen Long live our noble Queen God save the Queen Send her victorious Happy and glorious Long to reign over us God save the Queen 2 O Lord our God arise Scatter her enemies And make them fall Confound their politics Frustrate their knavish tricks On Thee our hopes we fix God save us all 3 Thy choicest gifts in store On her be pleased to pour Long may she reign May she defend our laws And ever give us cause To sing with heart and voice God save the Queen 4 Not in this land alone But be God’s mercies known From shore to shore Lord make the nations see That men should brothers be And form one family The wide world over 5 From every latent foe From the assassins blow God save the Queen O’er her thine arm extend For Britain’s sake defend Our mother, prince, and friend God save the Queen

1 My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From ev’ry mountainside Let freedom ring! 2 My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above. 3 Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees Sweet freedom’s song; Let mortal tongues awake; Let all that breathe partake; Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong. 4 Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, With freedom’s holy light, Protect us by Thy might, Great God our King. Additional verse to celebrate Washington’s Centennial: 5 Our joyful hearts today, Their grateful tribute pay, Happy and free, After our toils and fears, After our blood and tears, Strong with our hundred years, O God, to Thee. Additional verses by Henry van Dyke 6 We love thine inland seas, Thy groves and giant trees, Thy rolling plains; Thy rivers’ mighty sweep, Thy mystic canyons deep, Thy mountains wild and steep,– All thy domains. 7 Thy silver Eastern strands, Thy Golden Gate that stands Fronting the West; Thy flowery Southland fair, Thy North’s sweet, crystal air: O Land beyond compare, We love thee best! Additional Abolitionist verses, 1843, A. G. Duncan 8 My country, ’tis of thee, Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Where men man’s rights deride, From every mountainside thy deeds shall ring! 9 My native country, thee, Where all men are born free, if white’s their skin; I love thy hills and dales, Thy mounts and pleasant vales; But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin. 10 Let wailing swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees the black man’s wrong; Let every tongue awake; Let bond and free partake; Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong. 11 Our father’s God! to thee, Author of Liberty, to thee we sing; Soon may our land be bright, With holy freedom’s right, Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King. 12 It comes, the joyful day, When tyranny’s proud sway, stern as the grave, Shall to the ground be hurl’d, And freedom’s flag, unfurl’d, Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every slave. 13 Trump of glad jubilee! Echo o’er land and sea freedom for all. Let the glad tidings fly, And every tribe reply, “Glory to God on high,” at Slavery’s fall.

God save The Sex Pistols

Like most folk music, “My Country Tis of Thee,” as seen in the lyrics above, has been readily adapted to express new sentiments, viewpoints and causes. The same with “God Save the Queen,” which was completely re-imagined from an aggressive, counterpoint Punk perspective by the Sex Pistols:

God Save the Queen
by the Sex Pistols

God save the Queen
the fascist regime,
they made you a moron
a potential H-bomb.

God save the Queen
she ain’t no human being.
There is no future
in England’s dreaming

Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need.
There’s no future
there’s no future
there’s no future for you

God save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God saves

God save the Queen
‘cos tourists are money
and our figurehead
is not what she seems

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
all crimes are paid.

When there’s no future
how can there be sin
we’re the flowers
in the dustbin
we’re the poison
in your human machine
we’re the future
you’re future

God save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God saves

God save the Queen
we mean it man
there is no future
in England’s dreaming

No future
no future for you
no fufure for me