After this year's Superbowl singing of the National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key, the subject of the song, and it's story gets bandied about and it's great for discovering something new about it.
The song began as a poem, "Defense of Fort McHenry",written in 1814 by Key, a lawyer in Boston, then fitted to the melody of a popular drinking song, it became a popular patriotic song of it's time. It wasn't until 1931 the it was adopted as the national anthem.
As the lyrics describe, there is a fierce battle, which stretches, unrelenting throughout the night until, as first light breaks o'er the smoky scene, the 15 stripes, and 15 stars "yet did wave".
The British battleships hadn't completely extinguished the military garrison there across the Chesapeake from Boston, at Fort McHenry. Key, a young lawyer, was being held captive for the evening; he had overheard British war plans to attack Baltimore, and was being held aboard the HMS Minden when the night-long rocket and artillery barrage took place.
The song is well known now, it's a song I learned at a young age, and like so many things, would probably forget, except it was a song we heard all the time. It was at sports events, at musical and theatre events. It was the last thing you heard when television signed off at about 2:01 a.m.
I know the lyrics, by heart, of the the first stanza, and below are all stanzai!
Also is a link to YouTube to see and hear and appreciate again Whitney Houston's stirring performance along with full symphony accompaniment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupsPg5H6aE
"The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key, 1862
O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs 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 washed out their foul footsteps' 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 loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved 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!
-Katykarter
The song began as a poem, "Defense of Fort McHenry",written in 1814 by Key, a lawyer in Boston, then fitted to the melody of a popular drinking song, it became a popular patriotic song of it's time. It wasn't until 1931 the it was adopted as the national anthem.
As the lyrics describe, there is a fierce battle, which stretches, unrelenting throughout the night until, as first light breaks o'er the smoky scene, the 15 stripes, and 15 stars "yet did wave".
The British battleships hadn't completely extinguished the military garrison there across the Chesapeake from Boston, at Fort McHenry. Key, a young lawyer, was being held captive for the evening; he had overheard British war plans to attack Baltimore, and was being held aboard the HMS Minden when the night-long rocket and artillery barrage took place.
The song is well known now, it's a song I learned at a young age, and like so many things, would probably forget, except it was a song we heard all the time. It was at sports events, at musical and theatre events. It was the last thing you heard when television signed off at about 2:01 a.m.
I know the lyrics, by heart, of the the first stanza, and below are all stanzai!
Also is a link to YouTube to see and hear and appreciate again Whitney Houston's stirring performance along with full symphony accompaniment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupsPg5H6aE
"The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key, 1862
O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs 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 washed out their foul footsteps' 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 loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved 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!
-Katykarter
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