an illustration of the Battle of Bunker Hill
Today, July 4, 2012 is Independence Day. Most of us just consider it to be a fun day off, full of barbecues and fireworks, but a lot of people fought, and died, for America to win it’s freedom. One of the things that distinguishes nations, and creates national pride, is a national anthem. The United States adopted The Star Spangled Banner. The Star-Spangled Banner” was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889, and by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The song was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover.
The lyrics come from a poem called: “Defence of Fort McHenry” written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships during the War of 1812. ” The Star Spangled banner has a 1 1/2 octave range, which makes it a challenge to sing. Only one of the four stanzas is usually sung. I am always amused at how many people who are given the honor of singing The Star Spangled Banner, mess up the words. So today, July 4th, I give you all the words to all four verses:
The Star-Spangled Banner *by Francis Scott Key
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
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.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
