Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Countries and Country Music

Hey all, this is something I've been curious for a long time. I never quite know how to phrase it, but I'll try.

In American country music, there are a lot of songs about, well, America. "Proud to be an American," "Only in America," etc. There's a large audience for that sort of patriotic, love-our-country music. (There's also a large audience who would rather listen to dentist drills than country music, but that's beside the point. ) Do other countries have this?

I honestly don't know. I would have assumed so, but I've heard otherwise. You all are the most international group I know, so I thought I'd ask the non-Americans here -- are there any popular songs about how great your country is? Your region? Your culture? I'm not talking about national anthems, but songs that would play on the radio just because people enjoy hearing them.

I'm not interested in debating the relative merits of countries, btw, so let's try not to go there. I'm just interested in relative patriotic feeling among the populations. Getting all emotional about my country is normal for me, but I suspect that would be seen as nationalism and a Very Bad Thing in some circles. So... just wondering.

PJ

Not in Sweden, no. It is considered ridiculous to sing songs to your country here. Swedes are patriots, we really are, but it's not part of our patriotism to sing songs about our country or to wave flags. But I should perhaps mention that a relatively popular song, "This is your land" which is meant to be a non-ironic tribute to Sweden, is a duet sung by a "typical Swede" and a man with a very noticable foreign immigrant-type accent.

I don't think so. But songs sung by regional artists with typical regional accents are popular.

No!!! That's considered to be very bad manners. You just can't do it in Sweden. Let me put it like this - those with the smarts and talent to write a good song praising Swedish culture know that that sort of thing isn't done, and those who don't give two hoots about good manners aren't talented enough to write such a song. So nothing of the sort exists.

Ann

There are in Australia...

"Land Down Under" anyone?
"Waltzing Matilda"....
Country music is also very popular there so you get a lot of artists release patriotic songs about various aspects of Australian culture. Slim Dusty is the one singer who comes to mind the most.
I don't follow country music at all, but I am sure some of the Aussies on here could reference a few examples.
Australians also are proud flag bearers - the boxing kangaroo and national flag tend to be the flags of choice seen at sporting events.

New Zealanders don't really have any patriotic songs.
"Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House is NOT considered a patriotic song... nor is that darn Dave Dobbyn Footrot Flats song (despite what some Australians might tell you). However kiwi's are very patriotic when it comes to sports - again though - no real 'songs' that people sing over and over. It is more about the flags - the national flag and the silver fern flag (black flag with a white fern on it).

In Brazil nowadays patriotic songs are rare. Patriotic songs were very common when Brazil had military governments (1964 - 1984) and people had to be patriotic or else. So, when the military government came down, people didn't want to sing patriotic songs anymore. Flags are just seen at the public sector, unless it's Olympic games or World Cup. During these times you can see flags everywhere. You could say that people here are patriotic since it be sport-related. :p

Well, that is a completely different case. I live in the south and here people are very proud of our story and culture. There're many songs about how beautiful and great our state is and there're groups dedicated to sing just this kind of song.



Idem. Culture and traditions in my state are very strong. There're groups of typical dance and centers dedicated to cultivate the local culture through music, dance, food, etc. There's a week dedicated to celebrate my state's independence when there're parades in every city with people wearing typical clothes and you can see flags from the state everywhere.


Group of typical dance


Annual parade to celebrate the independence and local culture


People waving our state's flag

And it's normal to see people wearing typical clothes in day-to-day activities.


Adults, children...


and even PETs wearing typical clothes.

So, in my country patriotic and culture songs are not common, but in my state they are. Go figure!

Andreia

Not for Singapore. We have what they call "Community Songs" that we learn in school that we sing, and that the radio or television broadcast only around National Day. They help foster an atmosphere of patriotism around National Day... I mean, these songs have lyrics like

Singapore, our homeland
It's here that we belong
All of us united, one people marching on
We've come so far together, our common destiny
Singapore, forever
A nation strong and free

or

One people, one nation, one Singapore
That's the way that it will be forever more
Every creed and every race
Has its role and has its place
One people, one nation, one Singapore

But these songs don't belong to any particular genre, and nobody listens to these songs during other times of the year.

Singaporeans are proud of Singapore. We've achieved much since having independence thrusted upon us 45 years ago. We try to punch above our weight in the international arena, but really, in the grand scheme of things, Singapore is very young and small country. Getting emotional about my country is one thing, to hear songs about about how wonderful my country is over the radio... nope, just not done.

Lisamaree you beat me to it! The only song I could think of that is associated with Australia often known as the unofficial anthem. I'm not really into the country music scene, but a Slim Dusty song that gets is really famous here is 'A Pub With No Beer' not really a patriotic song as such, but a pub with no beer in this part of the world is a big no-no. For those who don't know what a pub is your local bar is about the equivalent to what a pub is.

There are a few songs of this sort that I know of in Hebrew, but not as many as in English, I don't think (in terms of proportions, I mean). Israel is a relatively young country, so most of these are old - written either before 1948 to express hope of staying in that land or not too long after, to express fresh patriotism. Some of these are children's songs, actually, that I remember singing in music classes when I was little.

In Russian, I don't think I've ever heard one! I suspect it might have something to do with the same thing Ultra Woman mentioned about Brazil, except replace "military government" with "communism".

In Canada I haven't heard any either, except two: "Proud to be Canadian" which is a facetious song by the Arrogant Worms, and one which is definitely non-facetious - "Mon Pays" by Gilles Vigneault, a song by a French-Canadian singer. There's an English translation of the lyrics here .

Julie

Portugal has some similarities to Brazil in what concerns patriotic music.

The country lived under a dictatorial regime during the biggest part of the 20th century. Back then popular culture was heavily influenced by the regime and there were many songs that spoke of Portugal as a great country and of it's people as fearless explorers and whatnot. It was a way of promoting in people's minds the idea that the portuguese people (and therefore its goverment) were infalible and justify the poverty, lack of education and healthcare, and ultramarine war the people were subjected to.

After 1974, when the dictatorship ended, the patriotic songs became less frequent and less popular as well, apart from some exceptions.

There are some ethnographic groups that perform those types of songs and some have a degree of popularity (and are no longer connoted with the regime).

There were some hits in the 80's that could fill this category but they spoke of past glories during the conquer of the seas.

Fado (a type of music and also a word for fate) has some songs that speak of Portugal and the portuguese but the stories are personal most of the times. They refer to something that happened to somebody and they don't teach specific values as far as I know.

Nowadays the most patriotic songs that still appear now and then are usually made by emigrants or for emigrants and tell stories of people who miss the country they were born in.

Curiously enough I think that the portuguese are patriotic and proud. The problem seems to be the language or the way we pronounce words which makes some things hard to sing about without them sounding strange and completely unappealing.

Oh, and about the regions... Portugal is a small country and the variations in that respect are very mild from my point of view. Every region has ethnographic groups that play different forms of similar themes.

So it seems like there's quite a lot of patriotism around, but it's not always expressed in song. I can get why "sing this or else!" would take the fun out of patriotic music. :p

That made me chuckle, Ann -- I guess we've got a lot of people who don't give two hoots about good manners ("well, I'm a redneck woman , I ain't no high-class broad..." ) but still seem talented enough to get on the radio... that song isn't specifically about America, granted, but it's specifically about one particular region / subculture of American society. We have lots of songs that include lines about our country or flag , even when the song's mostly about something else.

We also have lots of songs about God & church , (not the kind of song you'd sing *in* church, mind you) and I know that's somewhat unusual.

There's lots more examples but I can't recall them at the moment, and I'm really supposed to be doing something else right now, so... I'll leave it at that

Thanks everybody for the world-tour! It was really interesting. I especially enjoyed the pictures

PJ
who, ten years ago, would not have been caught *dead* listening to country music But that was when I thought it was all "Oh, my woman left and my dog died and my truck's broke, woe is me..." which it totally isn\'t .

Pam, you said:

I said that there isn't anything like that in Sweden. But I was too hasty. Because there is indeed one region that gets more tributes and more declarations of love than you can believe, and that is our capital, Stockholm.

You just can't imagine how fixated on Stockholm my country is. All the important media are located in Stockholm. All national news is seen and reported from a Stockholm point of view. All really popular shows are either very much from Stockholm, or else they are quaint or laughable hobo shows. When you turn on the radio, you may hear the person announcing the next show say something like this:

And today is a stunningly beautiful day here in Stockholm... and now it's time for our next show, "Eat well" with Per Naroskin...

Sweden's biggest national radio channel and its most important public service channel loves making programmes about Stockholm. A few years ago they made a whole series of twenty parts or something, called "Has something ever happened in this particular part of Stockholm?" And then they delved into the history of a particular street in Stockholm. You'd think that they might have made programmes about Swedish towns that don't get a lot of attention, but goodness, no! That way they would have to leave Stockholm, wouldn't they?

About fifteen years or so Stockholm was named the "capital of culture of Europe" by the European Union. That wasn't such a big deal, because the EU bestows this honor on one European city or another every year, but this time it was Stockholm's turn. And Swedish media went crazy. Every day the TV channels had "Stockholm culture live" transmissions, and one channel introduced their Stockholm show like this:

"The center of the world must be somewhere... perhaps it is in Stockholm, the Capital of Culture of all of Europe!"

So, do the Stockholm people sing songs about themselves? Oh yes, you bet! Do you know the American song, Walking My Baby Back Home? Well, that song was translated into Swedish in the 1960s and in Swedish it became a song about a woman singing about how much she loved Stockholm, and how nice it was to walk through Stockholm hand in hand with her boyfriend!

Monica Zetterlund sings about walking through Stockholm The video clip shows Stockholm in the 1960s.

The grandfather of all tributes to Stockholm is a song by 18th century Swedish songwriter and entertainer, Carl Michael Bellman. The Youtube clip I found isn't very good at all. Usually this song is sung with a lot more enthusiasm and many more instruments backing the singer up.

Stolta stad (Proud city)

The song that Swedish media love to play in the summer is "Stockholm i mitt hjärta" (Stockholm in my heart), which is the opening and closing song of each week's TV-transmitted sing-a-long from Stockholm:

Stockholm i mitt hjärta (Stockholm in my heart)

All this showering of love on Stockholm means that it is relatively hard to love Sweden in Sweden. Those who live in Stockholm much prefer Stockholm to Sweden. Stockholm is seen as a gleaming jewel of a city, and the rest of Sweden is hobo land. Recently a reporter in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's most prestigious daily (and Stockholm-based, of course) mocked Göteborg, Sweden's second biggest city, for investing in a very big ferris wheel to attract tourists. As if Göteborg could ever be be anything more than a hobo town, ferris wheel or not!

(Oh, and our Crown Princess Victoria just got married. After the wedding, the national Swedish media - that is, the Stockholm-based media - nervously wondered if the wedding had given Stockholm as much international goodwill as everyone had been hoping for! Oh, and the wedding itself was called "the Stockholm royal love fest"!)

So the people of Stockholm love to sing songs about Stockholm, but they are much less interested in Sweden. The rest of Sweden find it hard to flaunt a lot of patriotism, because they, too, realize that those who lay down the rules of what is and isn't done in Sweden, the Stockholm media, will scoff at outward shows of patriotism. And they know, too, that Sweden is considered secondary to Stockholm, so if they sing about Sweden they will really acknowledge that they are only second-class Swedes, because they are not from Stockholm. So they may sing regional songs, flaunting their regional dialects, but they will sing about themselves and what they like to do rather than praise their region.

This is a song about Sweden. You can hear how melancholy it is. The Stockholm songs celebrate Stockholm, but this song about Sweden says that it is a melancholy thing to be living in Sweden.

This is a typical popular regional song, sung by Peps Persson. Peps Persson is from the southernmost part of Sweden, and he is a bit of a hobo, I guess. He lives in the countryside. In this song, he is singing that it is a beautiful day with lovely weather, and he is very happy about it. (The last one or two seconds of the clip shows a Stockholm girl saying something to a Stockholm guy about Peps Persson's song. The girl speaks in a snotty Stockholm dialect, while Peps Persson's regional dialect is very thick and broad.)

Ann