It’s no secret leftists hate everything about this country. Now, the Star-Spangled Banner seems to be the next target of leftists. Politico, a left wing rag employs idiots like
Ted Widmer to spew their progressive liberal Democrat extremist crap. You see, Ted Wismer doesn’t like the Star-Spangled Banner because the song is some big, British conspiracy or something. Hey Ted, don’t like the anthem? Move to Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria or any Sharia based Muslim country. Maybe their anthems will meet with your expectations.
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| Politico hack Star-Spangled Banner is terrible get rid of it! |
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Except that history is never quite as linear as we want it to be. In the case of the Star-Spangled Banner, the story quickly finds back alleys worthy of 18th-century London, where the music was actually composed. Indeed, the invading army that shelled Baltimore that night has nearly as much claim to authorship as the composer, for the tune was likely brought to America by British soldiers at the time of the American Revolution. It has been testing our vocal chords and our eardrums ever since.
Indeed, from its murky origins, the song has become so ubiquitous that it’s difficult not to hear it. In the early days of television, it was the music that terminated the day’s broadcasts, in those distant years when broadcasts mercifully ended. Its martial strains launch every sporting contest, adding a kind of athletic drama of its own, as local singers labor to reach the higher notes most of us have no chance of hitting. Each performance forces us to relive Key’s emotional trauma during that long night 200 years ago, as we grimace our way through the rough patches of “the rocket’s red glare” and the “bombs bursting in air.” From high school graduations to retirement ceremonies, it is the soundtrack of our lives, a kind of musical bombardment that endlessly perpetuates Key’s agony of waiting and watching.
Surprisingly, the sacred music comes from an organization that was anything but. “The Anacreontic Song,” or “To Anacreon in Heav’n,” was a popular bit of music in the United States when Key wrote his lyrics. In fact, Key had already set an earlier piece of music to it, a celebration of two American war heroes returning from North Africa. The song was composed in the mid-1770s for a London club, the Anacreontic Society, which named itself after Anacreon, a Greek poet who worshipped “the Muses, Wine and Love.” The Anacreontic Society did its best to live up to those goals, and the singing of loud drunken songs was an essential purpose of the organization. One witness complained that “the proceedings were very disgraceful to the Society; as the greatest levity, and vulgar obscenity, generally prevailed.” Ironically, one of its leading spirits was a British Army officer, Sir Richard Hankey, who was sent to quell the Americans, rebelling at precisely that moment. The music is usually attributed to an English composer, John Stafford Smith, but some uncertainty persists despite prodigious attempts by American bibliographers to nail it down.