Bob Dylan's "Changing of the Guards" was an anthem, but it never got played much on the radio, and not enough people caught on to the symbolic lyrics to make it "official". "The Times They Are A-Changin'" definitely rates as an official anthem, as did Paul Simon's "Sounds of Silence". "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a tragic anthem for the defeat of the South in the American Civil War. "Like A Rolling Stone" was long an anthem for frustrated and alienated people. Springsteen wrote a whole series of songs that were anthems for working class people, such as "Hungry Heart" or "Racing in the Street" or "The River". Another Dylan anthem is "Chimes of Freedom", and a religious Dylan anthem is "Gotta Serve Somebody". "Masters of War" is an antiwar anthem, and so is "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".

They're songs that aim to speak for not one person or two people, but for many or even all people. If they are successful anthems, it's because they ignite a deep emotional response in a great many people.

Unfortunately the TV video age has greatly trivialized the whole phenomenon by making thousands of utterly banal and unremarkable songs by easily forgettable musicians "look" like anthems by showing those familiar scenes of enraptured hordes swaying in front of the camera, lighting matches, etc...

It's all so predictable. People now go to shows and imitate the behaviour they've seen on the videos. What show does not draw an encore? It used to be spontaneous, now it's mostly unthinking repetation, based on consumption. Video did not just kill the radio star, it killed a whole lot more. It killed the originality of a lot of people's inner dreams.

- LH