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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsthe racism of the star-spangled banner
How Did the Star-Spangled Banner Become the US National Anthem?
In 1814, the poet and lyricist Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner, originally known as Defense of Fort MHenry. During the War of 1812, Key witnessed the attacks on Baltimore and wrote the words based on his experiences this night. These lyrics were printed in local newspapers and set to the tune of an existing song called Anacreon in Heaven, and then officially arranged by John Philip Sousa. Keys famous lyrics entered the world as a broadside ballad, or a song written on a topical subject, and printed for wide distribution.
More than a century later, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order designating The Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem, and in 1931, the US Congress confirmed the decision. The tune has kicked off ceremonies of national importance and athletic events ever since.
The Forgotten Verses
While the first verse of The Star-Spangled Banner is widely known by the American public, the last three verses are generally omitted in performances. Here are all the four verses, as they were written 200 years ago by Key:
O say can you see, by the dawns early light,
What so proudly we haild at the twilights last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
Oer the ramparts we watchd 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
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foes haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, oer the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the mornings first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
Tis the star-spangled bannerO long may it wave
Oer 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 battles confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washd 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
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lovd home and the wars desolation!
Blest with victry and peace may the heavn rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preservd 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
Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave.
ProfessorGAC
(65,034 posts). . .are the other three verses really, from a practical sense, part of the national anthem? (Leaving aside why anyone even needs a national anthem. Any country.)
Definitely there are some questionable lyrics there, but the anthem, for as long as everyone here on this forum has known, is just the first verse.
Too much "glory of war" in the first verse? Probably so.
But, the racism is a latent element of Key's living in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
We don't know that he wouldn't have been more enlightened had he been born 250 years later.
Maybe not, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)at a bare minimum, demanding AA athletes to stand for that racist crap is outrageous and should not be tolerated!
niyad
(113,302 posts)loyalty oath known as the "pledge of allegiance"
but then, I am an insignificant person, so nobody cares.