I just read a post by Cassandra at Villainous Company about “The Star Spangled Banner” and how so many American citizens don’t know the words and don’t sing along or show respect whenever they hear it. Cassandra was responding to a New York Times article by Lawrence Downes suggesting that the lyrics and tune of “The Star Spangled Banner” are just too difficult, and we should replace our national anthem with an easier song, such as “God Bless America.” Downes writes:
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is a song nobody can sing, commemorating an event nobody cares about, in a war nobody remembers. It should never have become our national anthem, but since it did, we appear to be stuck with it, at least until something better comes along.
I admit that when I read that, my heart sank. It hurts to think that there are American citizens who feel that way. I’ve read about Francis Scott Key and how he came to write “The Star Spangled Banner,” and each time I hear our national anthem, I think of how he must have felt to see that flag still waving that morning. That’s not how Downes views that moment, though. Here’s his take on that moment:
. . . a punchy, sleep-deprived Francis Scott Key scribbled his fretful ode to battlefield anxiety in 1814, then grafted to it the melody of a well-known ditty of the day.
“A fretful ode to battlefield anxiety”? A decidedly cynical view, to say the least. It seems rather in vogue these days to be cynical. For me, it is irrelevant whether or not “The Star Spangled Banner” is difficult to sing or the words difficult to remember. Changing to another national anthem won’t change anything. Cassandra hits the nail on the head when she writes:
. . . patriotism is not invested in a song. . . . It is a value we Americans no longer bother to teach our children. We no longer consider it worth the time. . . . And that, in a nutshell, is why replacing the anthem with a shorter, easier-to-remember song won’t make any difference.
Even Downes admits that “The Star Spangled BannerR” will almost certainly not be replaced with another song. There are too many people who don’t want that change. Yes, it is a difficult song to sing. Apparently I’m one of the few Americans who knows the words and the tune. I can’t hit the high notes, but I sing along as much as I can whenever I hear it. It is so much more than merely a good way to start ballgames or an effective way for TV and radio stations to sign off for the night.
It’s not just about respect for our national anthem, but about respect for our country. Cassandra ends her post with a paragraph that says it all:
Our material possessions mean nothing without the blessings of freedom secured by the sacrifices of those men and women who have been willing to fight to defend the ideas in our Declaration of Independence. And those rights will go away unless every one of us is still willing to stand up and defend the land we love.
Amen.
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