Republic or death

Dodging snipers for Eurovision

Tonight is Eurovision! Sweden should win, right?

Or failing him, France? 

Great, glad we agree!

In tribute to the world’s greatest song contest, I thought I’d put up a few quotes from an interview I did once with Dino Merlin, Bosnia’s answer to Paul McCartney and a man who’s been to Eurovision three times.

Dino stayed in Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo during the war of the 90s, when the city was under siege.

He had little electricity or water, Serb mortars were dropping on the streets, but he still got the energy to write both Bosnia’s first national anthem, Jedna si Jedina, and its first Eurovision entry. The Eurovision song was called Sva bol Svijet, All the Pain in the World, which is understandable if somewhat inappropriate for a competition that relies on glitter canons and showgirls.

While chatting to Dino, I asked if he ever managed to escape the siege and he said this: “The first time I went to Eurovision, I had to run across the airport. Have you heard anything about the airport during the war? There were UN soldiers patrolling the runway and if they caught you, they’d dump you back in the city. And from the other side, from the mountain, you had snipers - Serb snipers - shooting anything they saw move.

“So I got there and saw everyone was running one way round the airport. But something told me not to follow them, so I ran straight across. Terrified. Scared. Everything like that. But somehow I did it. I got to Ireland!”

“How was Eurovision?” I asked.

“We came sixteenth,” Dino replied deadpan, before bursting into laughter.

After the contest, Dino immediately returned to Sarajevo - running back across the airport - which either says he was insane at the time or really loved his country.

I don’t think any of this year’s Eurovision entrants will have gone through anything like that, but feel free to make up a hideous backstory about Sweden’s Robin Stjernberg if it’ll help you vote for him!

The most successful musician you’ve never heard of

Irving Burgie’s sold over 300 million records. He wrote most of the world’s first million selling album. His tunes have been sampled by everyone from Lil Wayne to - dear God! - Jason Derulo.

But you won’t know his name, and the kids in the school opposite his apartment walk past him without a glance.

Irving’s the songwriter behind all of ’50s legend Harry Belafonte’s greatest hits. He wrote most of Harry’s amazing Calypso album, songs like Island in the Sun, Jamaica Farewell and Day-O. Yes, Day-O. The song that goes “Dayyyyyyyyyy-o, dayyyyy-ayyy-ayyy-o!” and has been in so many adverts you’d have thought it’d been banned by now.

Why the Star-Spangled Banner’s as important today as it ever was

A few days ago, I recorded a piece for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent programme about why Americans are obsessed with their national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner.

It was light-hearted, centred on me trying - really trying! - to sing the tune at a baseball team’s anthem auditions.

It was going to be broadcast today, but then the tragic events in Boston happened, and it’s hardly the time for a jokey radio programme.

It is, though, a time for the Star-Spangled Banner - a song that can actually give Americans hope at a moment like this. 

When I was travelling in the US recently, I asked a lot of people what the song meant to them, and a surprising number told me it was important because of its original meaning - of America standing up to the might of the British Empire.

The song’s about the British bombing Baltimore during the War of 1812; the city somehow holding out.

I was initially confused when people told me this. The US today is the equivalent of what the British empire was in the 19th century. It’s hardly a bunch of pilgrims standing up to a bully. But people would always say the same thing: “S’pose you’re right, but when I sing it, it reminds me I have to stand up for what I believe in, no matter who tries to undermine it.”

There’s a lot of people who’d say the US “standing up for what it believes in” has been a bad thing. But right now, I prefer to think how remarkable it is that a song can still cause such emotion in people, and bring them together, especially a song that’s so ancient and so bloody difficult to sing. 

Here’s Marvin Gaye doing it. It’s probably not the most appropriate version for right now, but it is my favourite.

Farewell to Africa’s only cowboy

Marc Barengayabo, the composer of Burundi’s national anthem (pictured), didn’t seem to realise he came from a landlocked country in the middle of Africa.

Just take a listen to his anthem. It’s the sort of tune someone could only write if they spent their days dreaming of cowboys and kung fu movies.

It starts off normally enough, a military march like many of the world’s anthems. But 18 seconds in, it suddenly turns into the soundtrack to a Bruce Lee film. Then the percussion starts clopping, and the strings start swaying, and it changes again, sounding like a cowboy lolloping into town on a worn-out horse.

I always wanted to ask Marc what on earth he was thinking about when he wrote it; why he thought this tune would inspire the people of Burundi to build a new nation.

Unfortunately, I’ll never get the chance. He’s just died, aged 79.

If you want to read about him, there’s an obituary here. It doesn’t mention if he ever composed any other tunes, or if he was obsessed with films. But it does contain this amazing statement from his government: “The Government of Burundi implore the Almighty to grant [Marc] ample reward for loyal service to the Catholic Church and his country, and welcome him to his vast Paradise.”

Apologies to Americans, especially R Kelly

Nearly 200 years ago, the British navy spent a night bombing Baltimore. They did a really bad job, doing so little damage to the fort protecting the city, it was able to raise its flag the next day.

A lawyer called Francis Scott Key was on one of the British ships that night and wrote a song about it. He probably should have called it, “Isn’t the British navy rubbish?” but instead named it The Star-Spangled Banner.

Later this week, I’m heading to the US to do some research into that very song. And - God knows why - I’m also planning on singing it. In public. In a stadium. Like Whitney Houston. I should probably get my apologies in now!

Saying that, it might not actually be the Star-Spangled Banner I sing if a man called Steve from North Carolina gets his way. Steve’s currently petitioning the White House to get R Kelly’s classic Ignition (Remix) made the US anthem instead.

He has a point. “Obama,” his petition reads, “we ask you to recognize the evolution of this beautiful country and give us an anthem that better suits the glorious nation we have become.

“America has changed since Francis Scott Key penned our anthem. Since then, we have realized that after the show, it’s the afterparty, and after the afterparty, it’s the hotel lobby, and - perhaps most importantly - that around ‘bout four, you’ve got to clear the lobby, take it to the room and freak somebody.”

Personally, I think Steve’s picked the wrong tune. Why not Shut Up?

Ok, it’s about R Kelly coming back from throat surgery, but listen to that chorus:

Shut up
Shut up
Shut up
I’m talking to you

Isn’t that really what America needs? The next time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad starts having a go, the entire population could shout it back!

I’ll be posting updates of my trip on Instagram (@asmarshall), so feel free to follow the embarrassment of my singing there. Otherwise I’ll write something when I’m back.

Gambia’s ruler: messing with human rights, but not his country’s anthem

Once you’ve ruled a country for 20 years, you probably decide you can do whatever you like with it.

President Jammeh of the Gambia certainly appears to have reached that point (that’s him in the picture, showing off an inked finger after voting in an election). Over the past year, he’s apparently overseen a big fall in the country’s human rights record, executing prisoners accused of plotting against him and imprisoning journalists. 

He’s also started making bizarre decisions like announcing a four-day week so people can devote more time to prayer.

But even Jammeh knows his limits. A couple of weeks ago, an opposition newspaper reported that he was going to get rid of the country’s hymn-like national anthem, ‘For the Gambia, Our Homeland’, because it was written by a British couple.

The country deserves an African anthem, he apparently said, before suggesting the ‘22 July Anthem’ - a song written to celebrate the date he took power in a coup.

Now, I could argue that scrapping the anthem would be a sensible decision. It seems odd for any country to have an anthem written by past rulers even if it’s been happily sung for 47 years. The anthem’s based on a traditional tribal melody, but you’d be hard pressed to hear it.

Unfortunately, unlike many stories about Jammeh, this one doesn’t appear to be true. I’ve spent the best part of a fortnight trying to verify it, but everyone I’ve spoken to in and outside of the Gambian government insists a change isn’t on the cards.

Of course that doesn’t mean the decision won’t be made in the next few days! It certainly seems the sort of move someone could make to stir nationalist feeling. Watch this space.

As a random bonus, here’s some Gambian pop music for you. I’ve no idea who either tune is by - they’re from random CDs picked up by a friend in the country’s capital Banjul (check out the high-quality artwork!). But hopefully they’ll add a nice uplifting feeling to your day and maybe even help bring the sun out.

What’s love? Knowing when your fiancé needs locking in a room!

If you’re looking for music to play this Valentine’s Day, forget the romantic classics. What you need is Mexico’s national anthem.

Ok, the music isn’t exactly something you can dance close to, and the lyrics are a bit inappropriate (“Let other nations’ banners be soaked in waves of blood”), but the story behind it is perfect.

Francisco González Bocanegra was a young poet when the Mexican government launched a competition for an anthem in 1853.

He had no interest in entering. His days were filled with gazing at his fiancée, Pili, and writing her poems. Francisco was sure his words were so beautiful, they’d become known worldwide: men would read them to wives, boys use them to chat-up girls, even priests read them to congregations.

He didn’t have time to write a song for Mexico, he told Pili. Plus, Mexico had just lost half its territory to America. It was hardly a place to be romantic about.

But Pili believed that if anyone could write a poem for her country, it was Francisco. And so one day, she whispered in his ear at the kitchen table in her parents’ house, and dragged him upstairs and along a corridor to a secluded bedroom.

There the couple paused at the door and Pili leaned up to Francisco, kissing him more passionately than she’d ever done. She reached to unbutton his shirt, but then suddenly pushed him into the room, slammed the door and locked him in. “You can come out when you’ve written me an anthem,” she shouted, and went back downstairs.

Francisco looked around to find himself in the least romantic room imaginable; Pili had plastered it with paintings of Mexican military victories, of soldiers with bayonets and piles of dead Spaniards.

Four hours later, he slipped ten bloodthirsty verses under the door. They were chosen as the anthem within days.

I don’t have the faintest idea how long Francisco and Pili’s marriage lasted. But there’s a lesson here for you, dear readers: if any of you have a boy or girlfriend you truly love, lock them in a room whenever you want something.*

* Please don’t take that seriously!