Many times I have written about the travails involved in finding free-licence images for Wikimedia Commons, but this time it is sound files that concern me.
When Charles III acceded to the throne two years ago, the royal anthem of the Commonwealth Realms changed from “God Save the Queen” to “God Save the King”, having been in the feminine form for longer than the internet had existed. Extant recordings of the masculine form were hard to find, and those that did exist were inevitably very old.
Lacking the budget to form my own choir or hire a recording studio, I went looking for recordings of the song in the place it seemed most likely to find them – videos of His Majesty’s outdoor accession proclamations.
Of the dozens (perhaps hundreds) of these which actually took place, I managed to find just four for which either the venue host or a charitable bystander had uploaded the video to YouTube under Creative Commons. I firstly copied these videos themselves to Wikimedia Commons, then set about extracting the audio of people singing. Both of these involved a bit of a learning curve and the use of some third-party tools.
The Royal Exchange in the City of London (by Alison Pope)
This is the most high-profile of the four, and the one with the best sound quality. The band are playing (I think) Sir Henry Wood’s arrangement of the anthem (which is good because the composition itself is public domain) and the crowd are all in time. There is some noise due to wind, local dogs and the sliding of camera shutters.
Cornwall St Ives (by Cornishpastyman)
This version is sung a cappella. Most of the crowd have picked up by the third syllable and stay remarkably in time for the rest, though not necessarily in tune – one in particular says “noble” and “victorious” in a way that sounds almost like a dog yawning.
Music is provided by a lone trumpeter. Almost nobody picks up singing until the second line, and even then they all sound a bit low on energy.
Chatteris (by Chatteris Watch)
Again a lone brass-player and really only one voice is heard singing, picking up midway through the first line.
None of these are studio quality, of course, and none go beyond the first verse. Still, it’s a start.
UPDATE (August 2025)
The YouTuber Gobernador-Heneral has put together a 17-minute compilation of public performances of the anthem in the mourning period.
Robin Stanley Taylor 