July 4th had everyone playing patriotic songs. The Sunday before, June 29th, had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing a wonderful program of patriotic songs which made chills run up and down my spine. Sunday, July 6th, had my church doing a patriotic sermon and song fest, beginning with a flag salute. It was grand! The Mormons didn’t do the National Anthem, but at my church, we sang the virtually un-singable “Star Spangled Banner,” which became our National Anthem in the mid 1930’s. The “Star Spangle Banner,” was a poem written by Francis Scott Key, while the Brits were trying to destroy Ft. McHenry in Baltimore. After the night, the flag was still flying, so Key wrote the poem which was later accompanied by an old English drinking song, named, “To Anachreon in Heaven.” I have an LP of the song in its correct tempo, which is sort of a jazzy type song. I have no idea who Anachreon was or is supposed to be, why she was in heaven, nor do I care.
The point this: The Brits later sacked D.C. after finishing with Baltimore, and burned the White House. I still have no idea why Americans still seem to love the Brits, after that episode and the Revolutionary War itself, for that matter. The Star Spangled Banner, besides being virtually un-singable, due to its wide range of notes, (ask any chorus director), has nothing to do with the war which won us our independence from mother England. Who knows what the ’Bombs bursting in air,” “Oer the ramparts we watched,” “By dawn’s early light,” “Rockets red glare,” and all the rest means? Who knows what any of the words mean? Ask anyone who sings it what it means? Ask them what it is about. No one knows, and especially that it is a poem mated with an old English bar room song, titled “To Anachreon in Heaven.”
I have a suggestion, which makes ever so much sense. Like perhaps getting rid of the Federal Reserve, and which of course will never happen. Why not change our National Anthem to a song which describes America wonderfully, is beautiful, and easily singable:
“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. For purple mountains majesties, above the fruited plain. America! America! God shed his grace on thee. And crown they good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea. Oh beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat, across the wilderness. America! America! God mend thy every flaw. Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law. 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 every gain divine. O 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.”
A poem written by Katherine Lee Bates, after visiting Colorado, ( of course!) and put to music written by Samuel A. Ward. It is a marvelous, uplifting, thrilling song, which is beautiful, easily sung, and with marvelous harmony. What a National Anthem that would be! Even God Bless America would be OK, except the copyright belongs to the estate of Irving Berlin, and it may not be easily released. “My Country Tis of Thee,” is different words to the Brit’s National Anthem, “God Save the Queen,” so that wouldn’t do, even though the words are great. Anything, but the “Star Spangled Banner,” which has absolutely no meaning to hardly anyone, has such a wide range of notes that it is extremely difficult so sing, and has absolutely nothing to do with this nation’s founding, beauty, or Christian heritage. Every time I hear that wretched song, I long for “America the Beautiful” to be our rightful National Anthem, not a poem sung to an old English bar room song, named, “To Anachreon in Heaven.”