MITCHELL, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) When was the last time you sang the words to The Star Spangled Banner? For some of you, the honest answer is “never”. Oh, you’ve stood and removed your hat and put your hand over your heart, stared at the flag and may even had deep thoughts of gratitude to our fighting men and women as well as a flush of patriotism. However, have you actually sung the song and done so publicly? Do you even know the words? Be honest.

The Star Spangled Banner is not a popular song, as in one folks would sing around the campfire when socializing with friends or family. Second, really the only time the Banner is sung is at mass public events like ball games, military functions or political rallies. Third, the song is really tough to sing and to sing well. Most “normal” people, that is untrained amateur singers, have a range of only one octave. The Banner is nearly two octaves with rather low and then high notes, while the bulk of it is in the range of natural sopranos and let’s face it, that’s not most of us. In reality, the best rendition would be by two different voices tag teaming throughout the song with one handling the lower notes and the other the stratospheric portions of the song.

Celebrities have gotten themselves in trouble singing the national anthem. On May 25, 1965 Robert Goulet, a Broadway and recording star, was asked to sing the anthem before the heavy weight title fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. He did wonderfully on the tune but bungled some of the words leading to embarrassment and approbation. The most famous botching of the anthem, in relatively recent history, was when Roseanne Barr performed it on July 25, 1990 between baseball games at a double header in San Diego. Her program, Roseanne, was #1 in the television ratings and it was “Working Women’s Night” at the ball park so it seemed a natural crossover tie in for Barr to sing the anthem. She was terrible and once the boos started, she leaned into being awful making a difficult situation even worse.

There have been excellent renditions of the Anthem as well. Super Bowl XXXIII (January 31, 1999) saw Cher hit it out of the park. Chris Stapleton last year and Reba McEntire at this year’s Super Bowl had outstanding performances of the Banner as well. We didn’t have a national anthem until 1931, more on that later, so out of all of the songs the nation could have chosen, why choose one so hard to sing with such a questionable message – at least in the first verse that we traditionally sing – as the national anthem?

Francis Scott Key, a Baltimore lawyer, was trying to free an American citizen who was “impressed” into the British Navy. The issue of impressment was one of the disputes that sparked the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. Impressment was the practice of shanghaiing sailors off of their ships to work on British ships. Kidnapping on the high seas, as it were. Francis Scott Key was off of the coast of Maryland, on a British ship, negotiating the release of one such hijacked American when he witnessed the battle of Fort McHenry. He wrote a poem entitled, The Defense of Fort McHenry and had it published. The poem was popular and Key’s brother-in-law, Joseph Nicholson, had the bright idea of setting it to music.

Out of all the melodies Nicholson could have written or chosen, he selected “To Anacreon In Heaven” the club song of The Anacreontic Society – a group composed of British musicians. Nicholson did this because the words of the poem fit the melody of To Anacreon in Heaven. The poem was popular, and once a song – even more so.

We used to have a tradition in this country of “war songs”; songs that were extolling American virtues and that pumped up the home folks’ morale during periods of armed conflict. “Over There” in World War One is an example as is “Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition” in World War Two; that one was written by Frank Loesser who later wrote the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. There were protest songs during the Vietnam War. The closest we’ve come recently to “war songs” are Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning” and Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”, both are about 9/11. The Star Spangled Banner is in that tradition.

The Star Spangled Banner was first used officially beginning in 1889 and that was by the US Navy. The song was played when the flag was raised for the day at various naval installations around the country. South Dakota has a claim to raising the profile of the Banner as well. In 1892, at Fort Mead near Sturgis, Colonel Caleb Carleton commanded the garrison to play the Banner at retreat (the end of the duty day) and at the close of military parades and concerts. Colonel Carleton urged South Dakota’s Governor Charles Sheldon to make it a common practice for all military posts in the State, which Governor Sheldon did.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an Executive Order mandating that The Star Spangled Banner be played whenever a national anthem was called for. The United States still did not have an official national anthem at that time. After World War One, people in the United States started to think that the country should have an anthem like every other nation around the world. The question was, which song to pick as the official anthem of the United States of America?

In 1927, The National Federation of Music held a national anthem contest. The winner was to receive $1500 in prize money, that’s about $26,000 in today’s dollars. There were 901 entries submitted including songs like America The Beautiful, America (My Country Tis of Thee), You’re A Grand Old Flag, Hail Columbia (which is now the official song of the Vice President of the United States played when the VP enters a room, like Hail to the Chief is played for the President) Yankee Doodle Dandy and others. The National Federation of Music realized very quickly what a mare’s nest they had created. Several people submitted the same song independently of each other. How would they split the prize money? Their dilemma was reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s difficulty when his character was temporarily God in the movie Bruce Almighty, and he lets everyone win the lottery causing riots break out as people won only $17 each of a multi-million dollar jackpot. In addition, The National Federation of Music folks realized with 901 entries choosing just one would be controversial, so they passed the buck and picked no winner and awarded no prize.

As a result, in 1930 the Veterans of Foreign Wars took the bull by the horns and lobbied the Congress to make The Star Spangled Banner the national anthem. President Herbert Hoover signed the act into law on March 3, 1931 and the Banner became our national anthem. The choice was not universally popular. The song is hard to sing. The verse we choose to sing is full of self-doubt, questioning whether or not the flag still flies. Did we surrender? Are we still a country? Look at the words yourself, appended to the end of this article, and see that Key wrote a four stanza poem, building to a dramatic conclusion. The first verse doesn’t really inspire confidence. That’s because the first verse is full of doubt and question marks, unlike the last verse which rings out with triumph and patriotism.

There have been attempts in Congress, as recently as 2014, to change the anthem to America the Beautiful. People argue that song is more representative of America, both in its lyrics and composition. The song was composed by a man, Samuel Augustus Ward, with lyrics by a woman – Katharine Lee Bates. The song extols America, isn’t full of doubt like the first verse of the Banner and is much easier to sing. All efforts to abandon The Star Spangled Banner for something else, even something as worthy as America the Beautiful have failed miserably in the Congress.

Stars and Stripes Forever was made the official march of the United States in 1987. The “Black national anthem” Lift Every Voice And Sing (the song heard before The Star Spangled Banner at NFL games now) was suggested as the national hymn of the United States in legislation before the Congress in 2021 but that didn’t go anywhere either. The USA is still lacking an official hymn.

I’m constantly rooting for those brave souls who put themselves out there at ball games to sing The Star Spangled Banner. I always hope they sing it well, for themselves and for the country. March 3rd is National Anthem Day. Celebrate it, maybe don’t sing it yourself but google a video of a great performance of our Anthem and give it a listen.

Below are the lyrics to The Defense of Fort McHenry, what we now know as The Star Spangled Banner. Read the words and see if you don’t agree that if we are going to continue to use the Banner as our anthem, then perhaps singing the fourth stanza rather than the first would be more patriotic and appropriate at public functions.

The Star-Spangled Banner
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.

Happy National Anthem Day! May the Flag long waive over a land graced with and respectful of democratic freedoms for all, made safe and secure by the brave among us – both those past and present.