Thanks, Tony!
Now I know that Veteran’s Day is almost over. I kept meaning to post all day long, but the kids and I just had so much playing that needed to be done…
What I wanted to post was a link to a version of the National Anthem that I heard on the radio. It’s some country group with amazing sound and harmonies singing a capella. I’ve tried and tried to find out who they are, all to no avail. It starts out with just a woman singing, and then the guys join her. I even called the radio station when I heard them playing it, but the ding-a-ling I spoke to on the phone was about as helpful as a goat. Anyway, point being…if you know who or what I’m talking about PLEASE let me know who they are.
I hate that I don’t have that song ready for you to hear. You all know the words(I hope…please tell me you do!), and you all know what it means. You hear it at ball games and concerts and all kinds of places. We hear it often enough that it has become almost common place to just sing along without thinking about the words…or to just zone out completely. But whenever I hear or sing “The Star Spangled Banner”, I am almost always brought to tears. See, I am a very patriotic person, plus music moves me in ways that I can’t explain. When I hear the first few notes of our National Anthem, I feel nothing but pride. I’m not always proud of the choices our country makes, or of the way we are perceived(sometimes rightfully so) by other countries…but I am always proud to be an American.
So before I go to bed tonight, I want to say a big THANK YOU to all who have served our country-past and present-so that we can all have the freedoms we enjoy today. And I want to write out the words of the National Anthem. I’m not going to cut and paste them. And I’m asking you to not skim over them. Imagine what must have been going through Francis Scott Key’s mind as he wrote these words. As an officer in the Continental Army, Key had attended a meeting with British officials to discuss the release of a POW. After the meeting, he and his companions were allowed to go back to their own small ships, but were not able to go be with the other men in battle. Close enough to see, but not to help…all they could do was to sit and watch. All night long he saw “the rocket’s red glare” and “bombs bursting in air” of the Baltimore sky. Surely, he thought, the British have won. But as the sun began to rise and the smoke began to clear, Key was stunned to see an American flag-torn and tattered though it must have been-still flying. So moved by the sight, he grabbed a letter that was in his pocket and began to jot down phrases that would eventually come together to be our national anthem. Here are the first two verses:
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 th breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam or 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!