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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