Spectator competition winners: a song for Europe

This week you were invited to fill a gap by providing lyrics for the European anthem. The powers that be behind the anthem, which has as its melody the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, chose to dispense with Friedrich von Schiller’s words. ‘There are no words to the anthem; it consists of music only,’ says the EU website, in bold type. My request for suitable words elicited an absorbing, inventive postbag. I wondered if anyone might revisit Schiller’s 1785 ‘Ode to Joy’ and repurpose the following lines: ‘Yea, if any hold in keeping/ Only one heart all his own/ Let him join us, or else weeping/ Steal from out our midst, unknown.’ No one did, though there were frequent nods to other parts of the ode. Some entries sung on the page but fell down when I attempted a lusty rendition, which was a shame. Three cheers for the worthy winners, who pocket £25 each. John Whitworth and Frank Upton were unlucky losers and W.J. Webster takes the extra fiver.

W.J. Webster Fair Europa’s old, old story — Innocence seduced by bull: She was covered, not with glory, Maid unmade, a trusting gull. Out of such unnatural union Came a still-born Eurostate, Comity without communion, Rule by distant delegate. Symbol of this misconception, Mined from German mother lode, Sounds an anthem-like deception, Brussels’ grand symphonic ode. Joy is hymned as wealth increases Where good trade for some has flowed: Others, when the music ceases, Only know a vast debt owed.

David Silverman Freud and Schoenberg, Goethe, Foucault, Cocteau, Faust and Nibelungs; Overrated Goya, Munch and Friedrich Schiller, Heine songs!

Who needs Bach or Schubert’s Lieder, Beethoven, Brahms or Janacek? Diderot, Descartes, Derrida? — When you could have Ant and Dec!

How we’ll miss the great tradition Of our friends across the wave: Noddy Holder, One Direction, Chuckle Brothers, Chas & Dave. Ah! Your Only Fools and Horses, Benny Hill and TOWIE styles — What we’ll miss the most, of course, is You — dear cultured Europhiles!

Paul Carpenter Brothers of this greater union Daughters of Elysium Firm we stand in grand communion Staving off oblivion Meeting at our various summits Shaking one another’s hands While the euro ever plummets Shafting all our southern lands

Quislings of the UK funken Navigate their leaking boat Clearly they are dead and sunken By their futile Brexit vote Leave us to our federating Underneath this twelvefold star With one voice communicating Of our Mutter Angela

Basil Ransome-Davies Sworn to see all hatreds vanish, Friends from Portuguese to Balt, Harmonised but never clannish, Democratic to a fault. Other nations try to sell us Monstrous schemes of government. Don’t believe them when they tell us We are the Lost Continent.

We are honest, well-intentioned, In our union good thoughts reign, And the war is never mentioned Lest it trigger members’ pain. Farewell then to island nations Who refuse to share our dream. We shall last for generations, Europe, mega-state supreme!

Paul Evans Ten long years she’s pushed her trolley Down that Brussels corridor; Serving tea and being jolly, Joy at Britain’s Euro core…       Now the Brexit exit’s nearing,       Joy’s recalled for one mishap: Prompting universal cheering, She spilled tea in Nigel’s lap!

London-born, and proudly British, Joy’s decided to remain; Her solution may seem skittish, But she’s keen to stay, it’s plain…       When the Brexit vote was carried       She pursued a local boy. She’s remaining, now she’s married, This salute is owed to Joy!

Alan Millard Mighty Europe, wisely guided, Merkel’s daughter, Juncker’s son, We, its members, undivided, Bound in union, bow to none; Conquerors in tribulation, Willing slaves to Brussels’ writs, Friends we’ll be with every nation, All, except the bolshie Brits.

Blessed with Continental ardour On we’ll march to pastures new, And, by working ever-harder, Lead the world in all we do; Wars forgotten, wrangles righted, Freed from ruptures, rifts and splits, We, with all, shall be united, All, except the bolshie Brits.

Anthony Lane’s ‘The Book of Jeremy’ appeared recently in the New Yorker (‘And there came from the same country a prophet, whose name was Jeremy. His beard was as the pelt of beasts, and his raiments were not of the finest…’) Your next challenge is to submit your version of either ‘The Book of Boris’, ‘The Book of Theresa’, ‘The Book of Tim’ or ‘The Book of Nicola’. Please email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 28 June.