Cool! The prototype for The Star Spangled Banner!

[charlyvi]

In a 1906 editorial, the North American Review asked for a replacement for “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the United States’ national anthem because “the American people have been trying in vain for nearly a century to sing it.” With bizarre lyrics and a 12-note range, the song has always been a controversial choice. There’s no doubt that it’s hard to sing, but in the video above, we debate whether that’s a feature or a bug.

The music itself was not written by an American. Rather, like “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adapted from the British (and given lyrics about a war against the very same British). It’s often said that the tune was originally a “drinking song,” but that connotation is not quite right. It was composed in the 1770s by an elite men’s club of amateur musicians in London. They called themselves the Anacreontic Society after the Ancient Greek poet Anacreon, and their meetings included hours-long concerts by professional performers. The song was most likely intended for a trained soloist, and it would have sounded something like this:

As the song became popular in both Britain and in the newly independent United States, people borrowed the tune liberally. There were dozens of versions of the lyrics, including a powerful parody by an abolitionist writer. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was not even Francis Scott Key’s first go at it. So when he witnessed the resilience of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, he had “To Anacreon in Heaven” in mind as the vehicle for his poem.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/4/17531950/national-anthem-star-spangled-banner-hard-to-sing

Happy Fourth Everyone!

[kimbutgar]

1. Just saw the drunk history episode last night where they said it was a British drinking song

[charlyvi]

3. Vox mentions that in the article as well.

I didn't post the whole article. The tune was supposedly used in various situations.

[lame54]

13. I learned that in the great doc...

How Beer Saved The World

I'm sticking with their version

[Historic NY]

2. Even singing it drunk was feat few could master...

at the old Crown and Anchor Tavern,when they got into their cups. All those nasty bawdy songs.

[charlyvi]

5. Great, huh! n/t

[cyclonefence]

4. And long may the sons of Anachreon entwine

the myrtle of Venus with Bacchus' vine!

This is just lovely. Thanks so much.

[charlyvi]

6. You're welcome. Happy Fourth! n/t

[gtar100]

7. It was a shitty choice, in my opinion.

Song of warmongers.

America the Beautiful would have been a better choice, even though it glosses over the land-grabbing mentality of our history. But I wouldn't expect anything less from those days.

1. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

2. Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

3. Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.

4. Oh, beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Text: Katherine Lee Bates, 1859–1929
Music: Samuel A. Ward, 1848–1903

Oh well, it came around a little too late. That "brotherhood" thing probably wasn't all that popular with the rich at the time either. Still isn't. But God knows we sure need it now.

[Igel]

12. They'd just had the war for independence.

A spate of Barbary Wars to prevent the enslavement and confiscation of American soldiers.

Followed by the War of 1812, after years of hostile acts by Britain.

There was a three-pronged attack to take Baltimore, then clearly a southern city, in order to be able to cut west and divide the young US. The fight against Fort McHenry would allow easy access to British troops, and the battle described loosely in the SSB denied them that victory. The battles of North Point and Hampstead Hill denied them land access. This isn't far-off history for me; I grew up a couple of miles from North Point, during high school worked in North Point, and went to middle school a mile from North Point. The main road through my community was where the British marched to the Battle of North Point.

It was a bloody time. On the west the British and Canadians continued to stir up trouble.

The War of 1812 was actually when we became not just independent, but fairly secure in our independence.

We didn't fight another existential war for a century, and none in which the US was invaded and stood any sort of chance of being defeated. At the same time, while the Civil War was also bloody and did pose an existential threat, after the CW looking back to earlier times was one way to bring the country together and say that we had a common past and therefore could have a common future. One of the most important things for a sense of unity, to making a people a people, is having a common past that's interpreted pretty much the same by most people. To the extent that the past is divergently interpreted, to that extent unity is destroyed and wedges driven into the body politic.

The SSB may have been made officially the anthem in 1931 by Congress, but presidential proclamation did essentially the same thing 15 years earlier and it had been used for a few decades before that in official settings, possibly having gotten a big push from the Spanish-American War. But if there's nothing official, it's basically conductor's choice. They ratified what much of the populace had already decided and regularized the song's status.

And as an aside, the place where the British landed their troops in preparation for the Battle of North Point was a little peninsula SE of Baltimore City. For the Spanish American War the US military put up huge concrete bunkers as part of a fort, so that the next naval battle wouldn't be Fort McHenry but at Fort Howard. Basically they wanted to refight the last war, except that you don't refight wars on the same terms. But now it's a VA hospital, but the bunkers are still there. The house used as the British command post for the B. of NP was burned to the ground, but the older slave quarters are still there, attached to the plantation house rebuilt in 1815 or thereabouts.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Hmm. Needs more "O".

[charlyvi]

9. LOL! Or maybe Jimi!

[johnp3907]

10. One of the few versions I like.

The Kronos Quartet version, inspired by Hendrix, is pretty good too.

[charlyvi]

11. Sweet!

They do Jimi proud.