When the new song book "Sing Praises to Jehovah" was introduced from the great publishing company in 1984, it was clearly and frankly admitted (suprisingly) that some of the old songs had to be dropped due to the fact they were copied from other religions and some even infringed copyright in this regard.
However, from an early age "We thank you Jehovah" had always reminded me of "God save the Queen" and this song was not dropped and continues to be regularly used down to this day.
I realise in later life that the two songs are indeed similar in a musical sense. You can almost play one song on top of the other in places and the starting chord structure is identical.
Also, the two songs both seem to have a certain feeling of reverence which I am not sure is conjured up by the timing and the harmony alone or by the meaning the songs have in terms of their lyrics and use.
It turns out the British tune has been used many times over by different people and even by other countries, as European visitors to Britain in the eighteenth century noticed the advantage of a country possessing such a recognised musical symbol - including Germany, Russia, Switzerland and America (where use of the tune continued after independence). Some 140 composers, including Beethoven, Haydn and Brahms, have used the tune in their compositions.
God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen
How glad I am to be able to sing this song with pride instead of the Dub Dubbed version. This is one of those "outed-dub indulgencies" which is often under-rated.
Ballistic - Sponsored by "Kingdom Melodies"
