The fort actually had two flags: an enormous “garrison flag,” 30 feet tall by 42 feet wide and a “storm flag,” smaller-17 feet tall by 25 feet wide-so that when soaked in the rain it would not be too heavy for the huge, 90-foot flagpole. As dusk fell, the Americans on the merchant ship watched, helpless to do anything but hope the garrison would hold. But there were no spotlights on the flagpole-some 90 feet tall-at Fort McHenry.
Today, we are used to seeing our great structures illuminated by electricity after sundown-the Golden Gate Bridge, the Washington Monument, the Empire State building. The night before, amid the waning streaks of sunlight and through the thick, acrid smoke of cannon fire, Key, Beanes, and the other Americans on HMS Minden saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming With Beanes’s liberty secured, Key would have returned to shore, but because the party had been privy to the locations of British warships and upcoming troop movements, the British would not permit the merchant ship to leave. The 35-year-old Georgetown lawyer was on a merchant ship, having completed a mission to negotiate the release of William Beanes, a 65-year-old doctor from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, who had refused to give food and drink to British troops and so had been sentenced to be hanged. The sun rose behind Francis Scott Key on the morning of September 14, 1814, following a 24-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships in Baltimore Harbor. The familiar first stanza is one long question. Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light But a close reading of the text of all four stanzas reveals the poignance of America’s song, and can help us more deeply understand our country’s history and character.
The problem is compounded by the fact that most Americans only ever hear the first stanza. The tune and the language of the anthem have the effect of obscuring for today’s listeners the powerful story Francis Scott Key was telling. The tune is notoriously difficult, requiring a vocal range of an octave and a fifth, so singers typically begin quietly in the notes at the bottom of their vocal range then build to the high notes in the middle and finally that soaring conclusion. The first sheet music combining the tune and lyrics, published in 1814, called for the song to be performed con spirito-with spirit-but over time we have slowed the tune down to, at best, a solid maestoso and at worst, a dirge.
The poetic syntax of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not how people speak and the words are put to music, an eighteenth-century English drinking song. Instead our anthem is a poetic front-line account of the darkest moment of one long night of war, with all the melancholy and insecurity an existential crisis could muster. Ours could have been like theirs had our national anthem been “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” or “America the Beautiful”-two of the contenders for that honor before Congress settled the question in 1931. The national anthems of most countries are drawn from broad themes with many common elements: God’s blessings, past glories and bright futures, and lots of geography lessons. When it is time to honor their homelands, the Hungarians sing an epic poem of ancestors crossing the Carpathian Mountains, the Mongolians of the impressive ancestry of their people, and the Japanese of best wishes for their emperor.
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