It is rare to hear more than the first verse of the song.
Its strength also derives from associating a patriotic song with the flag that has increasingly been viewed as America’s primary symbol as well as with the words “In God We Trust,” which Congress adopted in 1956 as the nation’s official motto. history (the War of 1812 was regarded in its day as a second American Revolution), when our destiny was at stake. The primary strengths of Key’s composition consist of the emotions that it captures from such a pivotal moment in U.S. Then, as now, it often takes a trained musician with a broad musical range to hit the high notes and to do the song justice, and when individuals of average musical talents seek to extol the nation as a group, it is sometimes wise to substitute “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (a song to the tune of “God Save the Queen”), “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land,” or other tunes. That morning he was overwhelmed with emotion as he saw a massive flag with 15 stars and stripes defiantly waving over the fort, indicating that it had survived through the night, and shortly thereafter he wrote the piece to an existing tune.Īlthough it is common to hear that the tune was that of an old English drinking song, it was in fact the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” the constitutional song of the London Anacreontic Society, which hosted the era’s most gifted musicians at its evening dinners. Key, a lawyer who had negotiated for the release of a medical doctor whom the British were holding, was inspired to write after anxiously waiting aboard a ship watching the British bombard Fort McHenry after they had victoriously marched on the nation’s capital and burned the White House, the Capitol Building, and other public structures.
14 is the day in 1814 when Francis Scott Key penned “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which Congress adopted in 1931 as our national anthem.
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