Transcript

Am I the only one who didn’t really recognize that the Star-Spangled Banner asks a question? It finally, ahem, dawned on me when doing the research for this episode. I’d like to think I’m not alone; it’s precisely because we’ve all heard it so many times that it’s become, for many, aural wallpaper, entirely familiar though rarely closely attended to. Almost every phrase has been repurposed; you can easily imagine book titles like “The Rockets Red Glare,” and “The Dawn’s Early Light,” and you’d be right; I found over 500 with that last one alone.

The backstory is well known too, though as is so often the case, not in detail and not always correctly. In the midst of an otherwise overlooked war, best known for actually ending before the decisive battle and for Dolley Madison saving George Washington’s portrait as the British burn the city bearing his name—in partial retaliation for the less-known abortive American invasion of Toronto--a day and a night of battle and uncertainty gave rise to one of the most recognizable songs in the world, which also tells us a story of quickly, and slowly, becoming.

I’m Joe Janes of the University of Washington Information School, and it is September of 1814, Beethoven has premiered his Eighth Symphony, and Jane Austen has published Mansfield Park, anonymously. It’s also a time of some geopolitical import; a continent away, the Congress of Vienna is gathering to reassemble Europe following the first wave of the Napoleonic Era. The Emperor himself has been in exile on Elba for four months, though he will linger there for only five months more. Indeed, it’s in no small part because he’s momentarily off the stage that the British are able to turn their fuller attention to a pesky conflict in North America.

At this point, coincidence smiles on Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, slaveholder, and occasional poet, who boards a British ship on a mission to free an American physician wrongly arrested for treason. He and his party get stuck there, however, as the attack on Baltimore is planned, so he has a front-row seat for the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which defends the harbor.

From the deck of the Surprise, he witnesses the British use of the Congreve rockets, with roots back to 13th century China, and the bombshells designed to detonate as they neared their targets. Through the rain and smoke of the long day and night of September 13, he has no way of knowing what had happened until the following morning when he is able, finally, to see an enormous flag, raised to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” sewn by Mary Pickersgill and her family: 30 by 42 feet, 3 stories high, weighing 80 pounds, containing 350,000 hand-sewn stitches, and, as was the case then bearing 15 stars and 15 stripes. A smaller and cheaper “storm flag” had flown during the battle itself; the large one, now in the Smithsonian, was reserved for calmer conditions.

Inspired, Key makes notes on the back of a letter in his pocket. After his release, he completes the 4 verses at the Indian Queen Hotel; he’s known to have written 5 copies in his own hand, each slightly different, only 2 of which survive, so there we have no clear, definitive version. Many scholars are convinced that Key intended these to be lyrics, set to the tune of a song, probably written around 1775, from the Anacreontic Society, a gentleman’s musical club in London, named for an ancient Greek poet, now usually mistakenly described as a “drinking song” because their meetings often took place in taverns. He knew the song, having used it for an 1805 poem ending with “the brow of the brave”.

The initial spread of the verses started almost immediately. It’s probably Key’s brother-in- law, Joseph Nicholson, a judge, former Congressman and second-in-command at the fort, who takes them to a print shop and gets copies made in handbill form. These circulated quickly under the title, probably Nicholson’s, of “Defence of Fort M’Henry”. Given the circumstances, it’s no surprise (ha) that it spread through the city within an hour, “like prairie fire” according to one account. It’s performed first on the stage of the Holiday Street Theater, published as a poem now titled “Star-Spangled Banner” within the week and within the month in 17 other cities up and down the East Coast. Carr’s Music Store prints it with a musical score by November, bearing a 6/4 time signature and a tempo marking of “con spirito,” though with no mention of Key.

Things slow down a bit from there. “Yankee Doodle” and “Hail, Columbia” are the best- known and most popular patriotic songs at this time, and the “Banner” begins to take its place with them, often reinterpreted with altered lyrics for political expression supporting causes such as abolition or temperance, and appropriated by both sides during the Civil War. Slowly, it gathers momentum, perhaps including at baseball games though that practice is not well documented until 1918 and not regular until 1942. It becomes a military standard, it’s used by Puccini as the theme for the naval officer Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly in 1904, and by 1917, it is designated to be played at official military ceremonies.

Somewhere in there, probably 1917, a standardized version is created. 5 notable musicians were tasked with going through the song, measure by measure, and voting on how it ought to go. These included Oscar Sonneck, the first head of the music division at the Library of Congress who had extensively researched it, as well as John Philip Sousa, no less; the two of them disagreed on the first two notes, which Sousa preferred be syncopated. A manuscript from this process surfaced on the Antiques Roadshow in Eugene, Oregon in 2011, and was valued between $10,000 and 15,000.

It seems inevitable that the Star-Spangled Banner would become the national anthem, but it didn’t happen quickly or without a fight. Congressional resolutions were introduced starting in 1912 with little success; a number of patriotic groups joined the cause, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who gathered 5 million petition signatures. One of the final acts passed by the 71st Congress made it the first and only official national anthem in 1931. There was opposition throughout, somehow unimaginable today, based on its supposed heritage as a drinking song during the Prohibition Era, the fact that it was of English origin, that it was a wartime song rather than one dedicated to peace, and, as we all know, that it has a very wide range (an octave and a fifth) and thus, for many, is nigh impossible to sing, though we all do our best. Attempts to substitute the much easier “America, the Beautiful” have gone nowhere. It’s made the Billboard chart twice, Jose Feliciano’s controversial and very personal 1968 World Series version, and Whitney Houston’s powerful 1991 Super Bowl rendition, which got to #20 and then again to #6 in the weeks following 9/11.

Those two versions, one acoustic and one highly orchestrated, couldn’t be more different, and they, along with all the others over the last two centuries, illustrate that this song still isn’t finished, is still becoming. There is no “official” version, despite attempts to define it or lock it down, and for a nation as dynamic and experimental and occasionally fraught as the United States is, that somehow seems right.

Just for fun, let’s put Francis Scott Key back on the deck of the Surprise, 200 years on. What does he do? Does he compose a four-stanza patriotic rhyme? It seems more likely he takes a picture and posts it to Instagram, maybe uploads a cell phone video to CNN, or heaven help us, tweets out a selfie. Whether by handbill, social media, or just word of mouth, ideas can travel fast, like a rocket. Some of the most powerful then germinate, deepen, and develop. The lines that became the song that became the anthem spread quickly, almost virally, at first, then at a more stately pace, adding layers of meaning and importance, still today.

36 USC Ch. 3: NATIONAL ANTHEM, MOTTO, FLORAL EMBLEM MARCH, AND TREE. http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title36/subtitle1/partA/chapter3&edition=prelim

Cheatham, K. S. (1918). Words and music of “The Star-spangled banner” oppose the spirit of democracy which the Declaration of Independence embodies. [New York].

Document Deep Dive: The Musical History of. (n.d.). Smithsonian. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/document-deep-dive-the- musical-history-of-the-star-spangled-banner-120158958/

key, francis scott. (n.d.). Defence of Fort M’Henry. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.100010457
Molotsky, I. (2001). The flag, the poet, and the song: the story of the Star-Spangled Banner. New York: Dutton. NICHOLSON, Joseph Hopper - Biographical Information. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=N000100 Standardization Manuscript for. (n.d.). Antiques Roadshow. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201101T20.html “Star-Spangled Banner” becomes official U.S. anthem, March 3, 1931 - Andrew Glass - POLITICO.com.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33775.html
Taylor, L., Kendrick, K. M., & Brodie, J. L. (2008). The Star-Spangled Banner: the making of an American icon. New York:

Smithsonian Books  : Collins.
To make “America, the Beautiful” the national anthem of the United States of America. (1995 - H.R. 270). (n.d.). GovTrack.us.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/104/hr270
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, & Billman, J. I. (1932). The Star spangled banner: a brief story of the song, its growth in popularity and the campaign conducted by the Veterans of foreign wars of the United States which resulted in its adoption as our national anthem by act of Congress. Kansas City, Mo.: Published and distributed by National headquarters, Veterans of foreign wars of the United States.