Our National Anthem 1812-09-14

Yes, today is THE day. Fly your 15 star, 15 stripe flag if you’ve got it (it’s still a legal flag of the United States), if you don’t, 50/13 will certainly do. Bonus points for either the Gadsden flag or a Trump flag below the US flag.

The birthday of our national anthem. Well sort of.

You see, Francis Scott Key didn’t set out to write the national anthem. He was writing a poem. And the poem was actually titled, Defence of Fort M’Henry (yes, what we now think of as the British spelling of Defense).

I won’t belabor that part of the story. It’s told far better here anyway (I know my limitations):

Defence of Fort M’Henry was not set to music until somewhat later, I don’t know when. But the actual tune is not original for the song, it was originally To Anacreon In Heaven, which was written in Britain and was popular in both Britain and the United States. Here are the words to that song, as ripped from Wikipedia. (They also have an instrumental audio file, which sounds a little…different from The Star Spangled Banner.)

To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full Glee,
A few Sons of Harmony sent a Petition,
That he their Inspirer and Patron would be;
When this answer arriv’d from the Jolly Old Grecian
“Voice, Fiddle, and Flute,
“no longer be mute,”
I’ll lend you my Name and inspire you to boot,”
And, besides I’ll instruct you, like me, to intwine
“The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus‘s Vine.”

The news through Olympus immediately flew;
When Old Thunder pretended to give himself Airs.
“If these Mortals are suffer’d their Scheme to persue,
“The Devil a Goddess will stay above Stairs.
“Hark! already they cry,
“In transports of Joy,
“Away to the Sons of Anacreon we’ll fly,^[28]
“And there, with good Fellows, we’ll learn to intwine
“The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s Vine.

Yecch. And it goes on for four more verses. Anyone wondering why we broke away from England need look no farther.

It wasn’t until 1931 (March 3 to be precise) that the combined tune and poem, now The Star Spangled Banner, was officially made our national anthem by act of Congress. It had been recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889, and by Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

So…what did we use before this? There was no official national anthem at all. So we improvised, adapted, and overcame.

“Hail Columbia” was used at most official functions. We still use it, it’s what they play for the Vice President since he’s still a heartbeat away from meriting “Hail to the Chief.” He gets the ruffles and flourishes (you know, bom-bottebom-bottebom, bom-bottebom-bottebom…), then “Hail Columbia.”

Also in use was “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” but, much as I like that one, it suffers from one major defect: It is the same melody as “God Save the Queen” (or King, depending on who’s reigning at the moment). Our words were written by Samual Francis Smith in 1831.

Given that we’d gone to a lot of trouble to tell the United Kingdom what to go do with itself in the 1770s and again in the 1810s, did we really want to be using their melody for our national anthem?

Another favorite choice from those days of no official anthem is special to me, “America the Beautiful” since it was written right here in my county (El Paso County, Colorado). Congress actually considered it for the official national anthem. It was written by Catherine Lee Bates in 1893; the words started coming to her when she was at the top of Pikes Peak, she put them on paper that evening in her hotel (the original Antlers hotel). Like the “Star Spangled Banner” it started out as just a poem, “Pikes Peak”, got renamed “America” for publication, and got set to someone else’s tune, “Materna” (which in turn was from a church hymn published in 1892).

It also went through multiple versions, here’s the 1893 original. It settled into final form in 1911.

O great for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O great for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O great for glory-tale
Of liberating strife,
When once or twice, for man's avail,
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain,
The banner of the free!

O great for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

So there you have it, the songs we used before we had an official national anthem.

I’ll close, of course, with “The Star Spangled Banner” sung in St. Pauls, London, September 14, 2001, nineteen years ago today: