Update The Star Spangled Banner
Quick quiz, Mr.
and Mrs.
Patriot Person: Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner (henceforth SSB) and in what year did it become the national anthem? Francis Scott Key wrote it in 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore (two years into the War of 1812 against Great Britain) while on a truce ship a few miles from Fort McHenry.
Congress did not make his little poem into our national anthem until 1931.
Yes, the SSB was composed as a poem by Mr.
Key, a poem in four parts.
Almost nobody knows the second, third or fourth stanzas of the poem.
Do you? I didn't think so.
The SSB is, for all practical purposes, just the first stanza of Mr.
Key's poem, for the other three verses are never played and basically unknown.
All four verses commemorate the fact that the American flag was still flying over the fort when Mr.
Key got up in the morning after a fierce shelling that lasted through the night.
The poem was initially titled, "Defense of Fort Mc Henry.
" When the poem was put to music some time later, the tune selected was from a song called, "To Anacreon in Heaven.
" Curiously, the composer of that song is thought to be John Stafford Smith, a Brit.
A bit of delicious irony, that, unless of course it was done deliberately to spite the English.
There are three verses you don't know.
You might want to look them up.
Google makes it easy.
I can't include them here.
I can tell you my view of it, however: mind-numbing drivel.
The one basic stanza anthem seems almost sensible and calm, reasonable and suitably secular by comparison of those not heard very often or at all.
Here is my recommended ever-so-slightly reformed version of the first part of our hallowed banner, bangled with stars.
I hope you like it.
However, you won't be able to sing it, like it or not - unless you qualify to perform in an opera company or otherwise are gifted with a wondrous, trained vocal range and have practiced, practiced, practiced.
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, that dazzle and delight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? And the roses red glare, the tulips blooming in air, Gave proof thro' 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? Hey, please don't be picky or quarrelsome - roses glare in their own pretty way, and tulips certainly bloom in air.
Enough of rockets and bombs - don't we get enough of that with Iraq, Afghanistan and all the mayhem in the daily news? Cut me a little slack here, OK? Wherever possible, I left the good, the familiar, the calm and harmless imagery alone, since most of us don't know all the words anyway - the better to keep the few some recall, once in a while.
What I have done is replace the scary stuff (the perilous fight) and those tiresome war symbols that ought not be celebrated by mentally healthy people (the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air).
So, with the bicentennial of the SSB a mere six years away, maybe it's time to start thinking about a few modest, sensible reforms to the hoary old anthem.
Times have changed a lot since 1814 - these or perhaps even more inventive, creative and otherwise appropriate lyrics can evolve in order that we all more positively celebrate our freedoms.
Great that Old Glory was still there way back at a time when we still were struggling to work things out with the Brits, it's wonderful that the US prevailed in that battle and that a peace treaty was signed (the war, by the way, is considered a tie) and that we have got along famously with England ever since, but a little tweaking is in order for that first stanza.
If you agree, and are feeling poetic, patriotic and/or particular about words to sing concerning the virtues of the homeland, feel free to suggest a few reforms of your own.
Or, if you prefer perilous fights, rockets and exploding bombs, well, feel free to suggest hands off the bangled banner.
But at least let's resolve to continue ignoring those other three stanzas of the SSB.
Yike.
and Mrs.
Patriot Person: Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner (henceforth SSB) and in what year did it become the national anthem? Francis Scott Key wrote it in 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore (two years into the War of 1812 against Great Britain) while on a truce ship a few miles from Fort McHenry.
Congress did not make his little poem into our national anthem until 1931.
Yes, the SSB was composed as a poem by Mr.
Key, a poem in four parts.
Almost nobody knows the second, third or fourth stanzas of the poem.
Do you? I didn't think so.
The SSB is, for all practical purposes, just the first stanza of Mr.
Key's poem, for the other three verses are never played and basically unknown.
All four verses commemorate the fact that the American flag was still flying over the fort when Mr.
Key got up in the morning after a fierce shelling that lasted through the night.
The poem was initially titled, "Defense of Fort Mc Henry.
" When the poem was put to music some time later, the tune selected was from a song called, "To Anacreon in Heaven.
" Curiously, the composer of that song is thought to be John Stafford Smith, a Brit.
A bit of delicious irony, that, unless of course it was done deliberately to spite the English.
There are three verses you don't know.
You might want to look them up.
Google makes it easy.
I can't include them here.
I can tell you my view of it, however: mind-numbing drivel.
The one basic stanza anthem seems almost sensible and calm, reasonable and suitably secular by comparison of those not heard very often or at all.
Here is my recommended ever-so-slightly reformed version of the first part of our hallowed banner, bangled with stars.
I hope you like it.
However, you won't be able to sing it, like it or not - unless you qualify to perform in an opera company or otherwise are gifted with a wondrous, trained vocal range and have practiced, practiced, practiced.
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, that dazzle and delight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? And the roses red glare, the tulips blooming in air, Gave proof thro' 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? Hey, please don't be picky or quarrelsome - roses glare in their own pretty way, and tulips certainly bloom in air.
Enough of rockets and bombs - don't we get enough of that with Iraq, Afghanistan and all the mayhem in the daily news? Cut me a little slack here, OK? Wherever possible, I left the good, the familiar, the calm and harmless imagery alone, since most of us don't know all the words anyway - the better to keep the few some recall, once in a while.
What I have done is replace the scary stuff (the perilous fight) and those tiresome war symbols that ought not be celebrated by mentally healthy people (the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air).
So, with the bicentennial of the SSB a mere six years away, maybe it's time to start thinking about a few modest, sensible reforms to the hoary old anthem.
Times have changed a lot since 1814 - these or perhaps even more inventive, creative and otherwise appropriate lyrics can evolve in order that we all more positively celebrate our freedoms.
Great that Old Glory was still there way back at a time when we still were struggling to work things out with the Brits, it's wonderful that the US prevailed in that battle and that a peace treaty was signed (the war, by the way, is considered a tie) and that we have got along famously with England ever since, but a little tweaking is in order for that first stanza.
If you agree, and are feeling poetic, patriotic and/or particular about words to sing concerning the virtues of the homeland, feel free to suggest a few reforms of your own.
Or, if you prefer perilous fights, rockets and exploding bombs, well, feel free to suggest hands off the bangled banner.
But at least let's resolve to continue ignoring those other three stanzas of the SSB.
Yike.
