Our Anthem Triumphant !For many decades, various people have criticized "The Star-Spangled Banner" as being too hard to sing, too violent, and based on an old English drinking song. Plus, it's been our national anthem only since 1931. Let's look at each one of these criticisms:
- - Too hard to sing:
Some would prefer "America the Beautiful" because it's much easier to sing. Do we really want a sweet, beautiful song to be our anthem? Not me! I want an ANTHEM! Not a lullabye! "America the Beautiful" is a fine song, but it's TOO soft to be our anthem! Too easy!
Those who want an easy song to be our anthem are following the same sentiment as those who want security instead of freedom!
They want to be coddled instead of inspired! "The Star-Spangled Banner" became our national anthem because our ancestors were a hard people! They didn't want an easy song! They WANTED something hard to sing! They never liked taking the easy way out! They always wanted challenges!
- - Too violent:
America offers to people liberty and justice, not peace and comfort. "If you want peace, work for justice" is a familiar slogan. C.S. Lewis wrote, "If you seek truth, you will find comfort. If you seek comfort, you will find only soft soap, and in the end, despair." These are wise observations.
If you want to find comfort, you must first seek truth and justice. And you have to fight injustice. Injustice is violent. To defeat injustice, it is sometimes necessary to overwhelm it with force. "War is not the answer" is a popular slogan. But it is often false. Sometimes war IS the answer!
Sometimes the only way you can end a war is to end the aggressor!
Notice, in "The Star-Spangled Banner" the violence is started by America's enemy. The song celebrates not American aggression, but America's survival of foreign aggression.
- - Based on a drinking song, and recognized only since 1931:
1931 is when Congress officially recognized the song as our national anthem, but the PEOPLE considered it to be our anthem since it was first written in 1814.
The tune was originally called "To Anacreon in Heaven." It was written about 1780 in England, for the Anacreontic Club in London.
It was deliberately made hard to sing. The idea was, "If you can sing this song, you're not too drunk. You can have another."
"To Anacreon in Heaven" was a popular song in America in the early 1800s. Virtually everyone in America knew it, and
sang it with great gusto. This is probably the one most important thing forgotten about our national anthem. It was sang with GUSTO! Not solemnity!
It was a rowdy song for a rowdy people! It's not supposed to be sung like a funeral dirge!
It's supposed to be sung like a fight song by football fans!
Many writers were already trying to write patriotic lyrics for that popular tune. Francis Scott Key's lyrics are the ones that caught on. When it was first published as sheet music, it sold like wildfire. America already had its favorite tune, now it had its anthem.
What is an anthem? An anthem a song that captures the spirit of a movement. Helen Reddy's song "I Am Woman" became the anthem of the women's movement. Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55" became the anthem of motorists. "The Star-Spangled Banner" needs to be sung the same way. (Maybe we can get Sammy Hagar to do a version of it.)
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was America's anthem. It was a popular song, sung with great enthusiasm. It was sung in pubs and at war. We fought a war to gain our independence, and then we fought a war to retain our independence.
We sang a loud, rowdy song to celebrate our VICTORY! Let's have lots of groups sing the loudest, rowdiest version of the song they can, and post it on YouTube!
And if anybody doesn't like the song, just sing it right back to them! LOUD! And let's give some attention to the fourth verse, too.
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More info about the song's history can be found at:
http://www.contemplator.com/america/anacreon.html http://www.contemplator.com/america/ssbanner.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star-spangled . . . . 1
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?
. . . . 2
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.
. . . . 3
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.
. . . . 4
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved 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 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!
