Anthem - Intellect
Anthem - Intellect
Anthem - Intellect
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Signifying Europe<br />
This generation has no nation / Grass roots pressure the only solution / We’re sitting<br />
tight / ‘cause asylum is a right’.<br />
Outside the mainstream pop field represented in the ESC, the topics of war, division<br />
and death stand out as a dominant thematic cluster in songs with ‘Europe’ in their<br />
titles, at least in indie rock, metal and singer-songwriter styles. To some extent, this<br />
supports the previous interpretation of Europe Day, the EU motto and the EU anthem.<br />
Just to pick an example, Roxy Music’s melancholic ‘A Song for Europe’ (1973) depicts<br />
how the ‘I’ walks alone in Paris and Venice, remembering lost moments without any<br />
hope for future redemption: ‘There’s no today for us / Nothing is there / for us to<br />
share / but yesterday.’ At the end of this truly melancholic song, words are also sung<br />
in Latin and French. This was written at a time when Europe was still caught between<br />
the superpowers, with a serious atomic threat looming large. British post-punk band<br />
Killing Joke’s ‘Europe’ (1985) expresses a deep anxiety over the history and threatening<br />
future of war: ‘Take up your arms pick up your courage / A black sun is rising as the<br />
gods of Europe sleep’. Catastrophes and atrocities are mentioned: ‘What have they<br />
done, what are they doing? / The place I love so butchered, scarred and raped / The<br />
years have passed us, still we’re fighting’. The song is desperately pessimistic: ‘Glory<br />
glory how we watch in Europe / the day humanity is over / Let nations east and west<br />
tremble at the sight’ until ‘reason dead forever—god let it be soon’.<br />
‘Europe after the Rain’ is the title of a song by John Foxx that has been reused with<br />
a completely different tune by the German thrash metal band Kreator (1992). It also<br />
spans a temporal narrative with a problematic past, a paralysed present and an even<br />
more frightening future. Today’s ‘indecisive government’ with bizarre ‘perversion’ has<br />
created confusion concerning good and bad: ‘Can’t remember who we are’, ‘Emotions<br />
paralyzed’, ‘Terrifying industry protect departed nations / Can’t get back together again<br />
/ Leaving Europe after the rain / Acceptance of neo-fascist / Persecuting anarchists /<br />
Put the wrong ones on the list’. Meaninglessness and hopelessness rule in a capitalist<br />
Europe run by ‘materialistic parasites’.<br />
The Swedish melodic heavy metal band Europe was founded as Force in 1979 but<br />
changed its name in 1982, allegedly inspired by the Deep Purple live album Made in<br />
Europe. 440 The band has never released any song with ‘Europe’ in its title, though it had<br />
one called ‘America’ (2004), indicative of the direction of identification of the band, in<br />
spite of its chosen name. However, some 1980s Swedish singer-songwriter tunes paint<br />
a similar picture as the previous ones. Jan Hammarlund: ‘Jag vill leva i Europa’ (‘I want<br />
to live in Europe’, 1981), Anders F. Rönnblom: ‘Europa brinner’ (‘Europe’s burning’,<br />
1982) and Björn Afzelius: ‘Europa’ (1984) all relate not to the wars left behind in the<br />
past but to a persistent war threat with missiles accumulating on both sides of the<br />
iron curtain. Hammarlund’s song combines this with the other main theme, that of<br />
enjoying romantic visits to key continental cities, but in a nostalgic light, expressing<br />
the risk of loss through nuclear war. This depressing feeling lifted after 1989, and<br />
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