Just Can’t Find The Words

The next time there is cause to play the Spanish national anthem at a sporting event, take a close look at your TV screens. Amongst all the chests being puffed out and tears of pride falling from their eyes, you’ll notice, well, not a whole lot of singing going on among the sportsmen and women of that particular country. Although Spain may boast one of Europe’s oldest national anthems, it seems they never quite got around to adding any words. It’s a situation that Mariano Rojoy, leader of Spain’s opposition party, wants to rectify. On our way back from our 2-week beerathon in Magaluf, we dropped in on Madrid, to see what was going on.

With Enrique Iglesias unavailable, the Spanish government had to revert to plan B

England’s national anthem implores God to save the ruling monarch so that she can live long and be ‘sent victorious’ somewhere or other. The French, well, who knows what they sing about but it’s probably heart-warming and in all likelihood a little off-putting at dinner time. Even the Aussies have ‘Advance Australia Fair’, although they only knocked ‘Dinkum’ off the end of it in 1978. It seems everyone, when it comes to occasions like Olympic medal presentations, World Cups and the like, has something to belt out patriotically, apart from the Spanish. Some argue that it might be due to the divided social fabric of the country, with strong separatist movements in the Basque and Catalonian regions. Indeed, it’s an argument supported by many in ‘the know’. We, however, have a different theory. One developed after a brief saunter around the country’s capital city (Madrid is the capital, right?). We took a handful of Spaniards aside for a day and asked them to write lyrics that really summed up their beloved country and what it meant to them. As the day wore on, the reason there are no words to their national anthem became all too clear.

First up was Diego, a farmer from just outside Madrid who was visiting the city with his sister Felipa. It took Diego three hours to compose the following masterpiece;

For years we struggle

To come to terms

With laws that stop

Us taking our siblings.

But now our land

With lots of sun

And cows and donkeys

Can be happy once more.

I love my sister.

Next up on the Spanish Ivor Novello nominations list was José, a waiter from a busy café in the centre of Madrid. His effort, while short on actual quality, was plenty long on passion;

I love this country

I would bleed for it day and night if I had to

I would cut off my hands and feed them

To a Frenchman if it meant Spain could be free.

We have sunny skies and beautiful landscapes

I will not let Barbarians from Italy put factories on them

And then sack all of the workers like they did to my father

I would see them all die in a pool of their own blood before that occurrence was permitted.

But the pick of the bunch had to be Guillerm, a student in philosophy and theology at Madrid’s Complutense University. His studies in his chosen subjects, coupled with the beautiful, historic and cultural surroundings in which he studied them, resulted in pure poetry;

Spain! Spain! Spain! Spain!

Yeah!

(Then punch and/or spit into the air)

Other suggestions that came our way when we asked the inhabitants of the city about what they could do about their lyrically challenged anthem, saw some people abandoning words altogether, favouring instead a national dance to go with the music. One local lady in particular treated us to a dance extravaganza which lasted for twelve minutes and included what looked like some old school break-dancing, a healthy dose of vaudevillian slapstick and the removal of her false leg, which she then used as an imaginary machine gun, aimed at every passer by.

Whatever lyrics the Spanish government decides to apply to the anthem, if indeed they apply any at all, it seems they have a nation of vociferous citizens who will continue to celebrate their national identity in their own, very idiosyncratic ways.