The Star-Spangled Banner

Our national anthem is a prime example of why lawyers should not make musical decisions. The Congress of the United States made this song the national anthem by congressional resolution in 1931. It was signed into law by the not so wonderful president, Herbert Hoover. There are musical issues with the tune, and the lyrics were problematic since Francis Scott Key penned his poem, The Defence of Fort M’Henry, in 1814. Do you know all the words?

The song that accompanies those lyrics was written for a men’s social club in London, the Anacreontic Society. While sober it is a difficult tune to sing. Because it is predominantly disjunct and jumps all over the place it does not sound solemn or dignified which is not surprising since its original purpose was as a drinking song for rowdy young men. The other problem is the range. The distance from the lowest note to the highest is an octave and a half. When we get to the “rockets red glare” half the participants cannot sing that high and drop an octave or stop singing.

The other problem is the third stanza of the original poem. The author was part of the American military force that attempted to halt the advance of the British on their way to our nation’s capitol. The Battle of Bladensburg has been long hidden from history books because the American defenders were routed by a British force that was assisted by a company of Colonial Marines that was comprised of runaway slaves who fought with the British to gain their freedom. Apparently Key was sufficiently incensed by his black adversaries that he included them in the third stanza that has since been dropped from the official version. Key’s enemy marched the last eight miles to Washington D.C. and burned all the government buildings.

There is little doubt that God Bless America or America The Beautiful would have been better choices. Better words and better music!

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 wash’d 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.