The Star-Spangled Banner

 

The star-spangled banner that Francis Scott Key saw flying over Fort McHenry, now at the Smithsonian,

“The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814) has been the official national anthem of the US since 1931. It is the song you hear when an American wins a medal at the Olympics. It is the song heard at the beginning of ball games in the US, a custom started in 1918 during the First World War.

US schoolchildren are taught to stand during the song, face the flag and put their right hand over their heart. Most are taught at least the first verse. Few know all four verses. In the military you are taught to salute during the song.

Schoolchildren are also taught part of the story behind the song: During the War of 1812, on September 13th 1814, all day and all night, the British navy pounded away at Fort McHenry in the harbour of Baltimore. Francis Scott Key, stuck behind British lines, saw the battle and throughout the night looked to see if the US flag was still flying. When it was still flying at sunrise, he was so overjoyed he wrote a poem, “Defence of Fort McHenry”, which starts:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Thus the first verse.

The part they leave out is that Key was a slave owner who fought in the war against the Colonial Marines, runaway slaves fighting for their freedom. They beat him and went on to burn down Washington, DC. So in the third verse Key says:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The US flag stands for “the land of the free” – that triumphed over slaves fighting for their freedom!

The US wanted the 6,000 freed slaves back as “property”, but Britain settled them in Canada and Trinidad.

Key’s poem was printed in newspapers across the nation. It was set to the tune of an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven” (c. 1780), and became “The Star-Spangled Banner”, one of the patriotic songs of the 1800s. It did not become the national anthem till the 1900s, thanks mainly to Major League Baseball.

Covers: the two best I know of:

• Whitney Houston (1991) at the Super Bowl.
• Jimi Hendrix (1969) at Woodstock.

Houston’s cover is beautiful, probably the best ever, but Hendrix’s tortured cover suited a time when race riots at home and an unjust war abroad made many wonder:

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

– Abagond, 2016.

See also:

• The Black National Anthem
• athletes during “The Star-Spangled Banner”:
  • John Carlos – gave a Black Power salute
  • Simone Manuel – cried
  • Gabby Douglas – did not put her hand on her heart, but later apologized.
  • Colin Kaepernick – remained sitting because Black lives matter.
• Jimi Hendrix
  • Jimi Hendrix: The Star-Spangled Banner
  • Woodstock
• Whitney Houston
  • Super Bowl
• Why US history is Whitewashed
• Colonial Marines

Lyrics: what Francis Scott Key wrote:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.