I grew up near Baltimore, so field trips to Fort McHenry were obligatory in elementary school. We learned the lyrics (first verse, anyway) to "The Star-Spangled Banner" in kindergarten, and posters of Francis Scott Key always had pride of place on Social Studies' bulletin boards about Famous Americans. Getting in and out of Baltimore from the south requires either a trip over the Francis Scott Key Bridge, an elegant arch that marks where the Patapsco River empties into the Chesapeake Bay, or through the Francis Scott Key Tunnel, a not-so-elegant concrete passageway under the mucky waters of Baltimore Harbor.
However, I've never been too fond of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a song. Famously, Key, a lawyer, wrote the words after watching the Battle of Baltimore while imprisoned on a British warship during the War of 1812. The poem, called "Defence of Fort McHenry," was published in September of 1814 as a broadside by Judge Joseph H. Nicholson, who was Key's brother-in-law (connections are everything). Nicholson realized that the words fit the melody of "To Anacreon, in Heav'n," the official song of a group of amateur musicans who performed in the 1760s and who used the song to gauge the sobriety of the singer: if you were sober enough to stay on key through one verse, you could keep drinking. As a song, "Anacreon" leaves a lot to be desired. Melodically, it's appallingly difficult to sing; it's unbelievably long; and its chorus consists of many variations of the four lines: "And long may the Sons/Of Anacreon entwine/The Myrtle of Venus/With Bacchus' vine." But when the poem was republished later that month in the Baltimore Patriot and the American with the notation, "Tune: To Anacreon," the two were permanently connected.
FSK peering through the rockets' red glare
What I find particularly problematic, though, is that Key's words are so bloody pugnacious.
As children, we learn the first verse about the "dawn's early light" and "the broad stripes and bright stars so gallantly streaming." Sometimes we get the last verse, too, about freemen standing "between their loved homes and the war's desolation." But the middle verses are pretty bloodthirsty and anti-British, who are called "the haughty host" and over whom the speaker gloats that "their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!/No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave." Yikes.
It's understandable that Key was inspired by the bravery of the soldiers defending Fort McHenry and their improbable victory over the British Navy. It's also understandable that the song was given "official" status by the Unites States Navy in 1889, and that Wilson ordered it played at military occasions in 1916. Its over-the-top patriotism appeals to the slightly hysterical public mood common during wartime. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr even published an additional verse during the Civil War in 1863. What is less understandable to me is that it became the national anthem in 1931. Or that it has stuck ever since, especially when I think there is a much better choice, "America the Beautiful."
Sentimentality aside, "America the Beautiful" is a much stronger piece of writing than "Defence of Fort McHenry." It contains a layer of sophistication that Key's bombast lacks. The words were written by a Wellesley poet and professor of English literature, Katherine Lee Bates, in 1893 during a trip out west. Highly educated even by our standards, Bates is described on a page on Wellesley's website as an extremely intelligent and insightful woman, who demanded "the highest standards of accuracy and integrity of her students." Her teaching style is described as "serene," despite an "ungainly" and "very slow" physical presence. She also seems to have been a particularly good debater, whose "keen mental power, knowledge of the facts, and mastery of the art of badinage tested the limits of anyone foolish enough to try to defeat her in argument." She lived for many years in what was then delicately called " a Boston marriage" with Katherine Coman, the dean of the college. She was, in the term used by contemporary journalism, "a New Woman."
Katherine Lee Bates
Bates was inspired to write "America" after an excursion to Pike's Peak. The words reflect the country's cultural optimism at the approach of the 20th century (the "alabaster city" is Chicago, whose hosting of the Columbian Exhibition in 1893 was both a paean to progress and a civic triumph). The music was written in 1895 by Samuel Ward, and it's much prettier, not to mention easier to sing, than "Anacreon." But there is more to the song that just optimism and pride.
Bates continued to revise the lyric, publishing new versions in 1904 and 1913. Unlike the braggadacio of Key's lyric, which asserts that the victory over the British is God's will and "conquer we must, when our cause it is just," the words of "America" reflect both a belief in the American experience as a continuing journey of self-definition and a sense of obligation to live up to the great gifts we have been given as a nation. The subtext also suggests that America has not entirely lived up to these obligations, that there is always more we can do. Notice that "God shed his grace on thee," rather than being past-tense, is an imperative. And how often do we sing, "God mend thine every flaw,/Confirm thy soul in self-control,/Thy liberty in law!"? Rather than an exaltation of military might, and despite its late-Victorian breathlessness and religiosity, for me the song is a call to our better natures and what it means to be an American in the most noble sense. Here's the complete lyric:
"America, the Beautiful" by Katherine Lee Bates
O 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!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Control thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O 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!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims' feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought
Through wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When one or twice,
For man's avail
Men lavished precious live!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
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
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
Here's a terrific performance of the song by Willie Nelson et al. from the "Concert for America" broadcast on all networks shortly after September 11. Clint Eastwood's introduction is pretty long and intense (he's so tightly wound, he can barely speak at one point);if you'd like to skip the intro, the music starts at about 1 minute, 40 seconds. Check out which verses Nelson sings. And I dare you not to sing along.
