The Star Spangled Banner
We see it every day, the flag of our country. It’s displayed in yards across America, at schools, the Post Office, government buildings, hospitals, cemeteries, and other establishments. And it is always displayed at the White House and our military bases at home and around the world. It’s just there; it’s become a part of us, our every day life. But we probably notice it most often when the President orders the flags around the country to be flown at half staff, meaning half-way up [or down] the flag pole. And you will notice, too, that the flag is the background of this blog, a photograph that I took while visiting a National Cemetery.
We don’t know exactly who designed the first flag, although many historians think it was New Jersey Congressman Francis Hopkinson and sewn by Betsy Ross.1 We do know that it had thirteen stripes, alternating red and white, and thirteen white stars on a blue background; the stars signifying the new 13 states which before had been colonies. And the rest is history, as they say.
So, where did the song “The Star Spangled Banner” come from? It is from a poem that Francis Scott Key wrote in 1814 [the War of 1812], although its original title was “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, when seeing the flag still flying at dawn after a night of the British bombarding Fort McHenry. The poem was so popular that within a week it was suggested the words be sung to the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven”2, a popular song at the time and then becoming known as “The Star Spangled Banner”. In 1931 it was adopted as the national anthem of the United States of America3, 117 years after Francis Scott Key wrote the poem.
Over the course of history our flag has undergone many changes as the national flag, but always with thirteen stripes, and then white stars on a blue background. On August 3, 1949 President Harry S. Truman declared June 14th to be National Flag Day4.
But, as we all know, this is one of the hardest songs for the majority of us to sing. Those high notes….oh, those HIGH notes! Many people have suggested an alternative, any alternative, to The Star Spangled Banner, but would it evoke the same emotions as The Star Spangled Banner? I think not. Even if we can’t sing it, we become just a bit more proud of our country when we hear it, maybe even becoming a bit choked up and teary-eyed. The song and the flag together just symbolize to us the best free country in the world and, as in the founding of this country, we will defend that flag, along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the freedoms it gives to us, until the end.
For me, probably the most definitive rendition of The Star Spangled Banner is when Whitney Houston sang a pre-recorded version of it in 1991, backed by the Florida Orchestra, for Super Bowl XXV. [Yes, she apparently did lip-sync it! but it’s still incredible!] While this is my choice, I’m sure that you will have your own favorite version, one that you might lip-sync to – just as I tend to do!
Yes, I know this has nothing to do with photography, but then, this is my blog and it doesn’t always have to deal with a camera and a subject. ? Unless, of course, you really enjoy taking photos of our flag!
“O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed 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 Rockets’ 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?“
And forever in peace may it wave.
1
https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/long-may-it-wave-the-evolution-of-the-american-flag/francis-hopkinsons-claim
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner
3
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/03/star-spangled-banner-becomes-us-national-anthem-march-3-1931-432140
4
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/proclamations/2841/flag-day-1949
Posted in Holidays, Personal Thoughts, Reflections by Jason with no comments yet.
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