The Star-Spangled Banner

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America, with lyrics written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote them as a poem after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

The poem, titled "Defence of Fort McHenry," was set to the tune of the popular British drinking song "The Anacreontic Song", more commonly known by its first line, "To Anacreon in Heaven," and became a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being notoriously difficult to sing. It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and the White House (1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on 3 March 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 USC §301). Although the song has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today.

History

Early history

On September 3, 1814, Key and John S. Skinner, an American prisoner-exchange agent, set sail from Baltimore aboard the sloop HMS Minden flying a flag of truce on a mission approved by U.S. President James Madison. Their objective was to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes, the elderly and popular town physician of Upper Marlboro, a friend of Key’s who had been captured in his home. He was being accused of aiding in the arrest of British soldiers. Key and Skinner boarded the British flagship, HMS Tonnant, on 7 September and spoke with Major General Robert Ross and Admiral Alexander Cochrane over dinner, while they discussed war plans. At first, Ross and Cochrane refused to release Beanes, but relented after Key and Skinner revealed to them letters written by wounded British prisoners praising Beanes and other Americans for their kind treatment.

Because Key and Michle Skinner had heard details of the plans for the attack on Baltimore, they were held captive until after the battle, first aboard HMS Surprise, and later back on Minden, after which certain British gunboats attempted to slip past the fort and effect a landing in a cove to the west of it, but they were turned away by gunners at nearby Fort Covington, the city's last line of defense. During the rainy night, Key had witnessed the bombardment and observed that the fort’s smaller "storm flag" continued to fly, but once the shelling had stopped, he would not know how the battle had turned out until dawn. By then, the storm flag had been lowered, and the larger flag had been raised.

Key was inspired by the American victory and the sight of the large American flag flying triumphantly above the fort. This flag, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, came to be known as the Star Spangled Banner Flag and is today on display in the National Museum of American History, a treasure of the Smithsonian Institution. It was restored in 1914 by Amelia Fowler, and again in 1998 as part of an ongoing conservation program.

Aboard the ship the next day, Key wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had kept in his pocket. At twilight on 16 September, he and Skinner were released in Baltimore. He finished the poem at the Indian Queen Hotel, where he was staying, and he entitled it "Defense of Fort McHenry."

Key gave the poem to his brother-in-law, Judge Joseph H. Nicholson, who recognized that the words fit the tune of the popular melody "To Anacreon in Heaven," an old British drinking tune which dated from the mid-1760s, when it had been composed in London by John Stafford Smith. Nicholson took the poem to a printer in Baltimore, who anonymously printed broadside copies of it—the song’s first known printing—on 17 September; of these, two known copies survive.

On 20 September, both the Baltimore Patriot and The American printed the song, with the note "Tune: Anacraeon in Heaven", basing it off of a common song sung in pubs. The song quickly became popular, with seventeen newspapers from Georgia to New Hampshire printing it. Soon after, Thomas Carr of the Carr Music Store in Baltimore published the words and music together under the title "The Star-Spangled Banner", although it was originally called "The Battle of Fort McHenry." The song’s popularity grew even larger, and its first public performance took place in October, when Baltimore actor Ferdinand Durang sang it at Captain McCauley’s tavern.

The song gained popularity throughout the nineteenth century and bands played it during public events, such as July 4 celebrations. On 27 July 1889, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy signed General Order #374, making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official tune to be played at the raising of the flag.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson ordered that "The Star-Spangled Banner" be played at military and other appropriate occasions. Although the playing of the song two years later during the seventh-inning stretch of the 1918 World Series is often noted as the first instance that the Anthem was played at a baseball game, evidence shows that the "Star-Spangled Banner" was performed as early as 1897 at Opening Day ceremonies in Philadelphia and then more regularly at the Polo Grounds in New York City beginning in 1898. Today, the anthem is performed before the first pitch at every game.

On 3 November 1929, Robert Ripley drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon, Believe it or Not!, saying, "Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem."[3] In 1931, John Philip Sousa published his opinion in favor, stating that "it is the spirit of the music that inspires" as much as it is Key’s "soul-stirring" words. By a law signed on 3 March 1931 by President Herbert Hoover, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the national anthem of the United States.

Modern history

The first modern non-traditional arrangement of the anthem heard by mainstream America was by Puerto Rican singer and guitarist Jose Feliciano. He stunned the crowd at Tiger Stadium in Detroit and the rest of America when he strummed a slow, bluesy rendition of the national anthem before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series between Detroit and St. Louis. This rendition started contemporary "Star-Spangled Banner" controversies. The response from many in Vietnam-era America was generally negative, given that 1968 was a tumultuous year for the United States. Despite the controversy, Feliciano's performance opened the door for the countless interpretations of the "Star-Spangled Banner" we hear today. [4]

Another famous instrumental interpretation is Jimi Hendrix’s guitar solo at the first Woodstock Festival. Incorporating sonic effects to emphasize the "rockets' red glare" and "bombs bursting in air", it became a late-1960s emblem.

Whitney Houston’s rendition at Super Bowl XXV with the Florida Orchestra is often considered by some to be one of the best performances of the song. There were actually no live microphones; everyone was lip synching and finger synching. Houston's vocal and the orchestra track had been separately prerecorded. Mariah Carey's rendition at Super Bowl XXXVI is another outstanding prerecorded performance featuring one of the highest notes sung using the Whistle register.

When sung in public (before major sporting events, for example), verses after the first are almost always omitted, and few Americans know their words, or even that they exist. Isaac Asimov’s short story "No Refuge Could Save" made light of this: a foreign spy was identified when it was found he knew every stanza, the joke being that no "real" American would know the whole text.

It is also sometimes said humorously that the last two words of the national anthem are "PLAY BALL!" since that phrase is shouted by baseball umpires after the anthem is played before games. On his album "Wake Up America!", Abbie Hoffman and several musicians perform a raucous version of the song, with Hoffman shouting "Play ball!" at the song's conclusion. American motor racing events also play the song before the start of the race, leading to the other supposed last words of the anthem: "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

In 1990, Roseanne Barr sang an altered version of the song before a baseball game in San Diego, adding her own brand of baseball humor at the end of the rendition by grabbing/scratching her crotch and spitting. She was booed off the field at the song's conclusion.

In March 2005, the government-sponsored The National Anthem Project was launched after a Harris Interactive poll showed many adults knew neither the lyrics nor the history of the anthem. ^[1] While some view this project (sponsored by the military and various corporations) as a form of wartime propaganda, some music teachers say it will offer benefits for music education by bringing new attention to their efforts.

Lyrics

Translations

The anthem has also been translated into other languages. In 1861, it was translated into German. [5] It has been translated into Yiddish by Jewish immigrants [6], and into French by Acadians of Louisiana [7]. The third verse of the anthem has also been translated into Latin. [8] It has been translated into Samoan; here are the last four lines of the first verse:

O roketi mumu fa'aafi, o pomu ma fana ma aloi afi

E fa'amaonia i le po atoa, le fu'a o lo'o tu maninoa.

Aue! ia tumau le fe'ilafi mai, ma agiagia pea

I eleele o sa'olotoga, ma nofoaga o le au totoa.^[2].

Nuestro Himno

A Spanish-language recording of the "Star-Spangled Banner" called "Nuestro Himno" was released on 28 April 2006. This was a few days before nationwide demonstrations on 1 May regarding immigration-law reform. This recording was created as a show of support for Latino and Hispanic immigrants in the United States in response to a proposed crackdown on illegal immigration.

"Nuestro Himno" used the text of the Spanish-language version translated by Francis Haffkine Snow of the "The Star-Spangled Banner" called "La Bandera de Estrellas." This version was published by the US Bureau of Education in 1919. This same translation is on the United States Department of State's website. A reproduction of the original sheet music is on the Library of Congress website.

Public reaction to "Nuestro Himno" was widely divided. It drew this response from President George W. Bush: "I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English." ^[3] However, it had been reported that Bush himself may have sung the anthem in Spanish, and his administration had Spanish versions posted online. ^[4]

Performances

Main article: Performances and adaptations of The Star-Spangled Banner

The song is notoriously difficult for nonprofessionals to sing, because its range is wide: an octave and a half. Garrison Keillor has frequently campaigned for the performance of the anthem in the original key, G major—which can, in fact, be managed by most average singers without difficulty.^[5] (It is usually played in A-flat or B-flat.) Humorist Richard Armour referred to the song's difficulty in his book It All Started With Columbus

In an attempt to take Baltimore, the British attacked Fort McHenry, which protected the harbor. Bombs were soon bursting in air, rockets were glaring, and all in all it was a moment of great historical interest. During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner", and when, by the dawn's early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror!

Professional and amateur singers have been known to forget the words, which is one reason the song is so often prerecorded and lip-synched. This situation was lampooned in the comedy film The Naked Gun, as its star Leslie Nielsen, undercover as opera singer Enrico Palazzo at a baseball game, made mincemeat of the lyrics. The prerecording of the anthem has become standard practice at some ballparks (such as Boston's Fenway Park, according to the SABR publication The Fenway Project) [9].

Jimi Hendrix also made a notable instrumental rendition at Woodstock.

Musical references

The tune has been referenced in many other musical compositions.

• The city of Philadelphia commissioned Richard Wagner to write a piece in honor of the centenary of U.S. independence. His American Centennial March uses a recurring allusion to "The Star-Spangled Banner" in its main theme.
• The nineteenth-century American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869) incorporated both "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle" in his piano composition The Union.
• Giacomo Puccini controversially used the opening phrases of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a theme for the character of Pinkerton in his opera Madama Butterfly.
• The last of Leopold Godowsky's set of thirty piano pieces titled Triakontameron is "Requiem (1914–1918): Epilogue", which concludes with a full-blown romantic arrangement of the anthem.
• The paraphrase of the first stanza is used in the score of American Panorama (1933) by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
• The title tune of the 1960s musical Hair contains the lines (sung to the usual tune) "O, say, can you see / my eyes? If you can / then my hair's too short!"
• In the musical "1776" the song "Cool, Cool Considerate Men " starts and ends with the beginning bars of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and begins with the lyrics "Oh say do you see what I see?"

Motion Picture References

Several films have their titles taken from the song lyrics. These include two films entitled Dawn's Early Light (2000 [10] and 2005 [11]), two Made-For-TV features entitled By Dawn's Early Light (1990 [12] and 2000 [13] ), two films entitled So Proudly We Hail (1943 [14] and 1990 [15] ) , and a feature (1977 [16]) and a short (2005 [17]) both entitled Twilight's Last Gleaming. One version each of By Dawn's Early Light and Twilight's Last Gleaming deal with nuclear warfare.

Media

References

Wikipedia information about The Star-Spangled Banner This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Star-Spangled Banner". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.