Canada - Maple Leaf Forever (sung by Anne Murray at the final hockey game at Maple Leaf Gardens. I’m guessing Anne remembers the old lyrics better since she had to use a crib)
Australia - Waltzing Matilda (sung by Wendy Matthews, John Schumann, & Brian Cadd)
Wales - Men of Harlech (sung by a very young Charlotte Church, who can hit the high notes like nobody’s business)
Ironically, given the nature of C&F, the hardest countries I tried to pick for were Ireland and Scotland.
For Scotland I considered “Scotland the Brave” and “Scots Wha Hae” before settling on “A Man’s a Man for A’ That”. I pondered whether the last is truly a patriotic song since it doesn’t mention Scotland. The fact that Sheena Wellington sang it at the re-opening of the Scottish Parliament (after a 292 year adjournment) pushed me to select it:
As for Ireland, there are so damn many great choices, most of them rebel songs and hence controversial post-Good-Friday. But I’ll go with this one if for no other reason than I was at the performance I link to and was moved to tears by the end:
'Scuze me but those lyrics have nothing to do with the patriotic song that Alexander Muir wrote, except the last line of the chorus. Politically incorrect or not, these are the real lyrics: Maple Leaf Forever
If you want a song with contemporary lyrics, I’d go with …
Did you reject The Flower of Scotland because you considered it de facto national anthem or because you forgot? Because you really can’t ignore it… or the more dubiously ‘patriotic’ but just-as-popular-with-crowds-here choices of Loch Lomond and I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)!
Great song if more on the world-equality lines of A Man’s a Man for a’ That than specifically Scottish patriotism. But you’ve just oddly reminded me (through a wacky thought process of Dick Gaughan > Both Sides The Tweed > other possible choices) of the one glaringly obvious candidate we’ve all missed…
Another one for Scotland - Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia, here performed by the Barra MacNeils.
A group of folkies from Toronto, … um … “borrowed” Woody Guthrie’s song and made popular a version for Canada - This Land is Your Land (the Travellers).
That song could be adapted to any country without too much creativity, e.g., Scotland:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From the English border to the Shetland Islands
From old Saint Andrews to Uist and Harris
This land was made for you and me.