The words to the national anthem could be changed in time for Canada Day, and I am supposed to be outraged. Or proud. I can’t remember which.
Proponents say replacing “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command” will promote gender equality.
Opponents see the change as either A) heritage being sacrificed for tokenism, or B) the first step toward godless socialism, compulsory vegetarianism and the acceptance of climate change theory.
Me, I plan to keep singing O Canada in the traditional manner: soundlessly.
This is what most people do. They either stand through the anthem blank-faced, as though waiting for a bus, or work their mouths like a trout gasping for breath at the bottom of the boat.
Some of us learned this in school, where we began each day by not joining the teacher in singing O Canada, and ended it by not singing God Save the Queen. Then, in 1968, the Trudeau era (Trudeau the First? Trudeau Classic?) arrived and we stopped not singing The Queen in favour of not singing O Canada in both official languages.
That year, 1968, also marked the last time we changed the lyrics to O Canada, dropping two of the five (yup, five) “stand on guards” and adding “from far and wide” and “God keep our land.”
There were, in fact, 40 English-language versions of O Canada before Robert Stanley Weir’s 1908 lyrics were adopted. And even that version was altered, with Weir’s “thou dost in us command” giving way to “in all thy sons command” in 1913.
The original French lyrics have remained unaltered since Judge Adolphe-Basile Routhier wrote them in 1880:
O Canada, terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
(Translation: “O Canada! Land of our forefathers; Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers. Canadiens penalty to No. 76, P.K. Subban, two minutes for tripping.”)
Or maybe that’s not quite right. English-Canadians are less familiar with the French lyrics to their own anthem than they are with those of the Star Spangled Banner. (In 2014, after the singer’s microphone died halfway through the American anthem, the crowd at a Toronto Maple Leafs game delivered a stirring a cappella rendition complete with the bit about being happy that “our” flag was still there, having survived the bombs bursting in air during the War of 1812.)
It does seem odd that anglophones get so worked up about a minor tweak to the English words while not seeing anything odd about their ignorance of a parallel, totally unrelated set of French lyrics. It’s as though half of the U.S. sang “O, say can you see” while the rest belted out the words to Sweet Child o’ Mine.
And if Canadians find the “sons command” part contentious, then what about that “Car ton bras sait porter l’épée, il sait porter la croix” line, which actually translates to “because your arm knows how to carry the sword, it knows how to carry the cross.” That should have the revisionists wetting their pants.
On the other hand, both the French and English lyrics are pretty benign when compared to the anthems of other countries. France’s La Marseillaise, for example, warns of foreign invaders “coming into our midst/ To cut the throats of your sons and consorts.” It goes on to urge the French to slaughter the foreigners: “Let impure blood/ Water our furrows.” Must make immigrants feel super-welcome.
Mexicans sing “War, war! Let the national banners be soaked in waves of blood,” Italians warble “We are ready to die” and Vietnamese trill “The path to glory is built by the bodies of our foes.” Hungary’s lyrics could have been penned by Kurt Cobain: “No freedom’s flowers return, from the spilt blood of the dead, and the tears of slavery burn, which the eyes of orphans shed.”
By comparison, O Canada sounds as though it were written by Sharon, Lois and Bram.
As for changing the words, how can you complain if you don’t actually sing?
