Happy birthday to The Star Spangled Banner

by Percy Moran

Francis Scott Key catching that glimpse on September 13, 1814.

Here is one of the original broadsides of the lyrics. It was called “The Defense of Fort McHenry” at the time.

I can’t help but think of Eddie Izzard’s very funny bit about the singing of the national anthem – and that if you can’t remember the lyrics – just be firm, use “big mouths”, and keep “confirming and denying” with your hand gestures. hahaha

And yes, like wikipedia mentions, it is one of the more difficult songs to sing – and most anthems are notoriously EASY to sing, because – duh – they are for the MASSES, not for opera singers. But Star Spangled Banner starts low and goes way up high – and it takes a really good singer to pull it off (uhm, Whitney Houston?? Before she became a rickety crack ho? Her live version, for me, is the best. See video clip below. Phenomenal.)

So happy birthday, dear national anthem.

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 thro’ the mist 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 on the stream
‘Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! 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 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.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n – rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause 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.