How dear to us thy broad domain

One thing I’ve decided to stop doing is to write out how I failed somehow at blogging at the beginning of all my entries. It’s getting repetitive. I will say that I totally missed last week, but I did write an entry for Bloglog that will be be one of the first entries when I decided to bring it online. It probably won’t be for a while though (like May) since I can tell you right now I’m not going to able to give it the start it deserves. I want to be able to nourish it through the summer, so that it will be nice and beefy when life gets busy again.

Speaking of beef (the meat kind, not the drama kind), I haven’t had any in over two weeks! I decided to give up meat for lent because, well, I have to try being Catholic, don’t I? I mean, if I’m not doing that, then what am I doing? I don’t go to church and I’m anything but religious, so I guess I’m doing it just so I don’t completely lose the religion. It’s kinda like depositing $20 into a bank account every few months just so they don’t close it. Kinda like that.

The topic I’ve chosen for today’s entry is nice and hot. Sizzling. Just baked. As fresh as a pie on a windowsill. Has anyone ever seen a pie on a windowsill? I always wondered that. But anyway, the fresh pie I’m referring to is a proposal of the Harper Government that was revealed in their long-awaited Throne Speech this morning: to change the words of the National Anthem.

I think the thing about O Canada is that the wording is somewhat archaic and difficult to make a connection with. It’s almost like a prayer (Here I go back to religion again). You sing the words but you don’t really have any sort of visual idea what you’re singing about. “True patriot love in all thy sons’ command/With glowing hearts we see thee rise/The true North, strong and free”… what’s rising? Canada compared to the world? Rising in what sense? Physically? What’s meant by “true patriot love in all thy sons’ command”?

Compare this with the American national anthem, which almost spells it out for everyone. It’s slightly poetic, but really, how could you not get it? It’s about a flag and war and rockets and explosions! But even after all the bombs and fire and loud noises, the flag was still there!! Done and done. It’s amazing that I’ve been singing the Canadian national anthem for years and yet I understand more what the American one is going on about.

But does that mean that the Canadian anthem is crappy? No! Like a weird relative, it’s a part of our heritage, even if  we don’t understand its going on about all the time. We’ve gotten over the fact that it’s got really flowery wording and we love it for what it is. So what’s the issue? It’s that the wording either isn’t politically correct or it isn’t inclusive.

The proposed changes will turn “In all thy son’s command” into “Thy dost in us command”. Who’s going to be singing this, Gandalf? If we’re going to keep using the anthem, why would we make a new version that sounds older? It’s actually from the original version, according to the Star, but still, anything with dost is just… yeah.

But why are we changing the anthem anyway? Is it really that bad that one line has a slightly exclusive nature? In case it isn’t clear yet, I personally think it’s a waste of effort and it’s distracting from real issues. Let’s move on now. We’ve got a deficit to get rid of (apparently).

I should note that the timing is also funny, since on Sunday I was at Dundas Square after Canada won the Gold medal in hockey, and I must have heard people break into “O Canada” at least 5 times.

And I can assure you that none of them were concerned about the lyrics.

Advertisement