Let’s try the 1814 version at the Super Bowl….

Right up front, I want to say my hat’s off to anyone who will step up to the microphone in the MetLife stadium and sing the national anthem to 82,000 Super Bowl fans.

Renee Fleming, a soprano who’s more accustomed to an opera stage, will do the honors this year.

I hope she sings the 1814 version of the melody. You know, the “real” melody. The one that doesn’t have too many notes. The one that doesn’t have a random arpeggio before and after every “real” note in the score….

You know what I mean….too often, the well-meaning but crazed pop star who sings the anthem gets lost in a maze of made-up trills and embellishments that, frankly, make the whole anthem experience rather awkward for me.

Too often, it sounds like it looks like this:

I’m just asking for a little respect.

And by the way, hardly anyone ever sings more than the first stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which became our national anthem in 1931.

Here’s the entire poem written by Francis Scott Key after he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812:

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more!

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-founding-fathers-patriots-and-more.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/pssst-act-like-little-kid-pass-it-on.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/whaddya-think-this-is.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/cpl-frank-buckles-1901-2011-r-i-p.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/time-out-for-americas-pastime.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/remember-when-you-had-paper-route.html

Some other thoughts:

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-declaration-was-re-write.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-other-british-colonies.html