Sunday, July 4th had everyone playing patriotic songs and celebrating our 250th anniversary. The Sunday before, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a wonderful program of patriotic songs, which made chills run up and down my spine. Sunday had our pastor doing a patriotic sermon and we had a song fest, beginning with a flag salute, and we sang the virtually un-singable “Star Spangled Banner,” which officially became our National Anthem in 1931, by an act of Congress and signed by President Herbert Hoover. It aroused intense furor then, and still does. Efforts to make it our National Anthem have off and on continued since then.
During the War of 1812, we were once again fighting the Brits, for their capturing American sailors on the high seas, and forcing them to work on British war ships. In 1814, the Brits were attempting to destroy Baltimore’s Ft. McHenry, and poet Francis Scott Key was watching from a hill overlooking the fighting. On the evening of December 14th, the fighting was vitriolic, and Key wrote a poem titled: “In Defense of Ft. McHenry.” The next morning, the Stars and Stripes were still flying, so Key added that to his poem, which was later musically combined with an old English drinking song: “To Anachreon in Heaven.” I have an LP of the song in its correct tempo, which is sort of jazzy for dancing. Who Anachreon was, was supposed to be, or why she was in heaven, no one knows. I have no idea of how Key’s poem ever got put to drinking music, and subsequently into our National Anthem!
The Brits later sacked D.C. after finishing with Fort McHenry, burned the White House and part of the Capitol. Why do Americans still seem to love the Brits, after that episode, plus the RevolutionaryWar 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, 38 years earlier. Who knows what “Bombs bursting in air,” “Oer the ramparts we watched,” “By dawn’s early light,” “Rockets red glare,” and all the rest mean? Ask anyone who sings it what it means. What are they about? No one knows, and especially that it is a poem mated with an old English bar room song, titled “To Anachreon in Heaven.”
Why not again attempt to 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 mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy 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’s dream That sees beyond the years Thy 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.”
“America the Beautiful,” is 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, (who couldn’t read music and played only on the black keys!), and it may not be easily released. “My Country Tis of Thee,” is different words to the Brit’s National Anthem, “God Save the King,” 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 our 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.”
Why not forward this to everyone, and of course your Representative and Senator so we can get it rolling again and hopefully bring it to a logical conclusion!
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com