{"id":1840,"date":"2018-07-04T13:38:57","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T19:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/?p=1840"},"modified":"2018-07-04T13:38:57","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T19:38:57","slug":"a-star-spangled-blog-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/?p=1840","title":{"rendered":"A Star Spangled Blog Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just watched another video on YouTube where another singer passionately belted out another rendition of The Star Spangled Banner<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Imagine\u00a0the morning of September 14, 1814. The War of 1812 had recently ramped up, and after Napoleon\u2019s defeat at the\u00a0Battle of Waterloo<\/a>\u00a0in April 1814, the British forces turned their full attention to battle against the young American colonies.<\/p>\n

From a ship anchored in Baltimore\u2019s harbor, Francis Scott Key had been captured in an earlier battle. He\u00a0watched helplessly as Fort McHenry withstood 25 hours of British bombardment. Would this key battle in the\u00a0second war of American independence be victorious? Or would this battle be a major win for Great Britain?<\/p>\n

On the back side of a letter, he penned the first verse of his poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” He continued to work on the poem until it was completed with four verses.<\/p>\n

Today, we often sing the first verse.<\/p>\n

Oh, say can you see by the dawn\u2019s early light
\nWhat so proudly we hailed at the twilight\u2019s last gleaming?
\nWhose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
\nO\u2019er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
\nAnd the rocket\u2019s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
\nGave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
\nOh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
\nO\u2019er the land of the free and the home of the brave?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you notice the last line ends in a question mark? Mr. Key could see the bombs all night. There were no street lights. CNN, Fox News, nor the BBC were available on his smart phone to update him with information. He could only wait anxiously through the night to learn if the beloved American Flag – and the nation he loved – would rise in the morning, or be replaced by a white flag of surrender?<\/p>\n

If you stop singing with the song after that verse, you don’t find out the answer. If you end the song with that verse, there is no point in singing the song at all! Yet over and over, I hear singers end with great emphasis and\u00a0crescendo asking that question, when instead it should be lowering to a feeling of desperation, anxiety, hope, courage, fear, and faith.<\/p>\n

So here I repost the rest of the lyrics. Imagine the silence of the morning. The first rays of the sun appearing – the gleam of the mornings first beam. This is what Francis Scott Key saw in answer to his question. Notice that this verse ends in an exclamation point! This is where the crescendo properly belongs!<\/p>\n

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
\nWhere the foe\u2019s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
\nWhat is that which the breeze, o\u2019er the towering steep,
\nAs it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
\nNow it catches the gleam of the morning\u2019s first beam,
\nIn full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
\n\u2018Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
\nO\u2019er the land of the free and the home of the brave!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next verse taunts the enemy a bit as it rejoices in the war’s victory. (If a singer were to choose to cut a verse from a performance, this would be my choice.)<\/p>\n

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
\nThat the havoc of war and the battle\u2019s confusion,
\nA home and a country should leave us no more!
\nTheir blood has washed out their foul footsteps\u2019 pollution.
\nNo refuge could save the hireling and slave
\nFrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
\nAnd the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
\nO\u2019er the land of the free and the home of the brave!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The final verse is a humble prayer, attributing to God thanks for rescuing the land from the hands of the enemy.<\/p>\n

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
\nBetween their loved home and the war\u2019s desolation!
\nBlest with victory and peace, may the heav\u2019n rescued land
\nPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
\nThen conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
\nAnd this be our motto: \u201cIn God is our trust.\u201d
\nAnd the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
\nO\u2019er the land of the free and the home of the brave!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was an amazing poem. I love the raw emotion captured within the composition and rhyme. I wish that our attention span were longer, and that singers could sing it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just watched another video on YouTube where another singer passionately belted out another rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Imagine\u00a0the morning of September 14, 1814. The War of 1812 had recently ramped up, and after Napoleon\u2019s defeat at the\u00a0Battle of Waterloo\u00a0in April 1814, the British forces turned their full attention to battle against the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ryans-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glorajean.com\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}