Why does adding a maple leaf make something Canadian?

[bethbuchall]

So does anybody else remember singing "O Canada" their entire lives/childhoods (depending upon your age) and then at some point in the early 80's people saying, "Hey! We should make this our official national anthem!"

(And then they did...so we had to then have a special school assembly so we could learn to sing our "new" national anthem and they handed out little cards with the words printed on them like we didn't all know the words already.)

I had no idea that it wasn't official until the early 80s. We used to sing O Canada in music classes, and we were told it was Canada's national anthem. Since I'm older than dirt, this was definitely pre-80s. I learned something new today.

 

[bethbuchall]

In Grade 1 (there was no Kindergarten way back then and my parents even had the option of sending me to the one-room school house for a year before it closed!) our teacher lead us in the Lord's Prayer and then, if you were the student-of-the-day, you got to choose if the class sang "God Save the Queen" or "O Canada" while she played the piano. We had a picture of the Queen hanging directly front and center in our classroom beneath the clock. I don't remember if we recited and sang patriotic songs daily after Grade 1 or not. That kind of thing was only done at school assemblies by the time I was teaching and I have no idea what is currently going on in schools.

All I know now is that whenever we are in church around the 4th of July and they start playing "My Country Tis of Thee" (also known as "America"), my husband and I turn towards one another and mouth "God Save the Queen."

We learned "My Country Tis of Thee" very early in elementary school and later learned "God Save the Queen" in music class when we were learning other national songs. Now they sometimes get tangled in my head.

 

[ronandannette]

We learned "My Country Tis of Thee" very early in elementary school and later learned "God Save the Queen" in music class when we were learning other national songs. Now they sometimes get tangled in my head.

Sorry, were you raised in the States? I don't remember ever once hearing that song "America/My Country 'Tis of Thee" until Lee Greenwood popularized it after 9/11.

 

[bethbuchall]

Sorry, were you raised in the States? I don't remember ever once hearing that song "America/My Country 'Tis of Thee" until Lee Greenwood popularized it after 9/11.

Sorry, I should have made that clear...I am from the US. I grew up very close to the border with Canada, though.

 

[ronandannette]

Sorry, I should have made that clear...I am from the US. I grew up very close to the border with Canada, though.

And you also sang O Canada? That is interesting. We certainly never sang the Star Spangled Banner - I only knew snatches of it from watching hockey and baseball.

 

[kimblebee]

And you also sang O Canada? That is interesting. We certainly never sang the Star Spangled Banner - I only knew snatches of it from watching hockey and baseball.

I sing along every time it’s sung at a hockey game..it’s where I learned it too lol

 

[bethbuchall]

And you also sang O Canada? That is interesting. We certainly never sang the Star Spangled Banner - I only knew snatches of it from watching hockey and baseball.

I think that had something to do with living right across the river from Canada. We didn't sing O Canada in the morning with our Pledge of Allegiance time. We learned it in music class but did sing it several times every year. We also learned God Save the Queen.

Interestingly, we rarely sang The Star Spangled Banner, and I think that was also relegated to music class. We had a number of "patriotic songs" that we'd cycle through for opening time: My Country Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, God Bless America, Battle Hymn of the Republic. I also remember prayer song in kindergarten (1969).

 

[ronandannette]

I think that had something to do with living right across the river from Canada. We didn't sing O Canada in the morning with our Pledge of Allegiance time. We learned it in music class but did sing it several times every year. We also learned God Save the Queen.

Interestingly, we rarely sang The Star Spangled Banner, and I think that was also relegated to music class. We had a number of "patriotic songs" that we'd cycle through for opening time: My Country Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, God Bless America, Battle Hymn of the Republic. I also remember prayer song in kindergarten (1969).

Hey now, just a sec - This Land is Your Land is a CANADIAN song:
"...From Bonavista to Vancouver Island
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake Waters
This land was made for you and me..."


Right @kimblebee ?

 

[bethbuchall]

Hey now, just a sec - This Land is Your Land is a CANADIAN song:
"...From Bonavista to Vancouver Island
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake Waters
This land was made for you and me..."


Right @kimblebee ?

We eventually learned those words, too. But when we were little it was strictly, "From California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters..."

 

[bcla]

I had no idea that it wasn't official until the early 80s. We used to sing O Canada in music classes, and we were told it was Canada's national anthem. Since I'm older than dirt, this was definitely pre-80s. I learned something new today.

We didn't sing that in our school. We did have a rotation of songs in the morning when the flag was raised at my Catholic school. It was the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, and America the Beautiful. And apparently some songs were used in place of an official national anthem in the United States for years.

 

[JaneBanks]

I belong to Eastern Star in NY and we sing O Canada during our Grand Chapter/convention (which is happening right now but I'm not attending this year) since the state borders Canada and chapters close to the border work with the Eastern Star chapters that are close to the border in Canada.