Once I wondered about different anthems. Looks like one of the things Wikipedia misses on them is classification by content.
Personally I can split them into those categories:
- praise of the land — many anthems tell about features of the country like mountains, rivers, lakes, green meadows, whatever.
- praising love to the land — a lot of anthems say something like “we love this country”
- praising freedom — some anthems are mostly about defending freedom or how the land is good after getting freedom
- praising some symbol — mostly sovereigns or flags or people
- religious prayers or oaths to save or protect the country
One subgroup is anthems inspired or influenced by Polish anthem. They say virtually “That is not dead which can eternal lie. ahem, sorry “our land is not dead while we live”. Ukraine and Israel have such anthems.
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
So, here are interesting ones:
- Polish anthem — known for its dance music
- anthem of Andorra — not so many anthems are sung from the first person view (i.e. like the country itself tells its story)
- anthem of Moldova praises its language
My favourite is unofficial anthem of Sweden (since there is no officially approved anthem there). The ending of verse two is rather dear to me:
Jag vet att Du är och Du blir vad Du var.
Ja, jag vill leva jag vill dö i Norden.
Translation:
I know that you are and you will be as you were,
Yes, I want to live I want to die in the North
Indeed, I live in a country which sucks greatly, sucked and I know it will suck; I also want to live in some civilised country at North (especially Sweden). Någon, ta mig till Norden, är du snäll.