Max Cryer: Should NZ defend or amend national anthem?

The All Blacks sing the national anthem. Photo / Getty Images

COMMENT:

A Herald reader acknowledging that the parliamentary prayer has been modified suggested God Defend New Zealand demands the same scrutiny.

This is not impossible. Australia and Canada have both altered words within their official anthem, and in 1971 the Chancellor of the Exchequer reminded the British Parliament that Britain's anthem, God Save the Queen, actually has never had any official words.

Thomas Bracken, the author of God Defend New Zealand, was an Irish-born Catholic, baptised in December 1841 by Father Grennan in Dunboyne Catholic Church. Orphaned at 10, Bracken went to relatives in Australia and worked in gold prospecting, stock riding, shearing - and writing poetry.

Emigrating to Dunedin, he became a proficient journalist, editor, eventually a member of Parliament and a friend to Sir George Grey.

Already in 1874, Frederick Leach had published All Hail Zealandia - New Zealand's National Anthem - the first of many later offerings, all totally unofficial.

Bracken thought he could do better and two years later published the poem, God Defend New Zealand. It might have sunk without trace but for the tune added by John Joseph Woods in 1876, which seriously outclassed the other 50-plus unofficial New Zealand national anthems published over the following decades.

Without doubt, a tune can register firmly in the memory and John Joseph Woods' is no exception. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa once said: "Anywhere in the world, a New Zealander can instantly recognise the first four notes of God Defend ..." (The same four-note trick works with The Blue Danube, Beethoven's Fifth; Silent Night, Pokarekare Ana, A Long Way to Tipperary or Now is the Hour.

God Defend had the support of former Governor Grey, who organised the Maori Land Court to provide the song's words in the Maori language. This is Professor Timoti Karetu's translation of the official Maori lyrics back into English:

O Lord, God of all people

Listen to us, cherish us

May good flourish,

May your blessings flow.

Defend Aotearoa.

But over time, Bracken's words have become a worry. The opening line brings the somewhat unexpected reference to God having feet, and also somehow suggests God has various portfolios to administer - one of which is "nations".

The expressed wish to be protected from "the shafts of strife and war" is valid but strange, considering that in 1876 any war-like nations with the availability to cause strife and war barely knew where New Zealand was.

But the killer is "Guard Pacific's triple star." Now 146 years since those words were written, nobody knows for sure what he meant. There are 13 different speculations, each passionately believed by their proponents. But alas, no proof.

For more than 100 years, more than 50 different songs were published with covers proclaiming the song to be New Zealand's National Anthem, which simply wasn't true.

But in 1977 the Queen gave Royal Assent to God Defend to be instated as the national anthem, for use on all occasions of national significance, to be replaced by the Head of State's anthem (God Save the Queen) if the Head of State or representative thereof is present.

So now, while the relationship between New Zealand and Britain remains, New Zealand has two anthems. One of them extols the Head of State without mentioning our nation, the other extols our nation without mentioning the Head of State.

Is it time to revise the words? The Herald reader is probably right. Go ahead, but be careful.

• Max Cryer is the author of Hear Our Voices We Entreat.