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Stoneage
Was it politically corrected as talked about? I mean the lyrics changed or cut out or songs removed? Rule, Britannia for instance?
No, the the controversial lines remained.
The BBC backed-down from their stance after so many complaints from the public.
It was an absolute storm in a teacup. There are people every year who think Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory ought to be done away with, but what was due to happen in 2020 was:
LOHAG is part of a longer piece and is never sung by anyone on stage in any year. The audience sing it, and as there could be no audience there was nobody to sing. It was never due to be censored in any way (would be hard to stop the audience singing what they like anyway).
Rule Britannia was going to be played but not sung. The words were never due to be changed: they just weren't going to be sung this year because singing isn't very Covid-safe.
Jerusalem was to be performed for this year only in a specially written new arrangement.
The Press managed to boil this up into a claim that all the patriotic songs were being censored by wicked BBC lefties. There were protests, petitions, letters of complaint... The BBC duly hired some singers to sing Rule Britannia (words unchanged) and the Press hailed it as a great patriotic victory. The rest of the programme went ahead as originally planned, though I don't think the redesigned Jerusalem went down very well.
I usually watch and enjoy the Last Night, and have been in the audience a couple of times, but I didn't watch this year. Without the crowd, the whole thing just falls flat.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-15 20:39 by Green Lady.