Spain's athletes will finally be able to sing along to their national anthem after a special committee chose lyrics to go with the country's official tune, a newspaper said.
MADRID: Spain's athletes will finally be able to sing along to their national anthem after a special committee chose lyrics to go with the country's official tune, a newspaper said on Friday.
The words to the 'Royal March' were dropped in 1975 because of their links to the right-wing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.
Since then, Spain's sports men and women have been left to hum or gaze at the sky as it was played.
The ABC newspaper said a six-member panel assembled by Spain's Olympic Committee has now chosen lyrics to go with the 18th century up-tempo military tune.
It said the four verses were selected from among about 7,000 entries, although the name of the winner was not revealed. The anthem starts with the words: 'Long Live Spain/We will all sing together/with a clear voice/and one heart' and ends with: 'Justice and greatness/democracy and peace'.
The panel was a composed of a musicologist, a historian, a literary expert, a lawyer and a composer as well as two-time Olympic sailing champion Theresa Zabell.
It informed Spain's Olympic Committee of its choice on Thursday, ABC said.
It said the anthem, which must still be approved by the parliament, is to be officially unveiled on January 21 when Spanish tenor Placido Domingo will sing it in Madrid accompanied by an orchestra.
In 1770 King Carlos III ordered the 'Royal March' to be played at public events attended by the royal family and Spaniards soon came to see it as their national anthem.
Franco added lyrics, including the line 'raise your arms, sons of the Spanish people who are rising again', to the tune, but they were dropped following his death in 1975.
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