And that is to your credit.Ģ) It’s militaristic. For such a testosterone-drunk country, you’ve got a pretty sissyish anthem here. Or at least that, with its brain-hurting syntax and larynx-bruising octave-and-a-half range, it’s too damn hard to learn and to sing.Īnd it’s all the more graceful because it is in compound waltz time, 6/8, rather than 4/4, the forced march of most other national anthems. For decades people have argued that the anthem, which was made semi-official by Woodrow Wilson mid-World War I and then certified by Congress and Herbert Hoover in 1931 due to a campaign by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is too militaristic to speak to the better angels of the contemporary American character. The wrinkle in this ballyhoo is that a lot of the country isn’t convinced “The Star-Spangled Banner” is anything to celebrate. Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics (not the music, about which more in a bit) in 1814, and the anniversary is being fanfared with a concert Thursday at the Library of Congress, books, biographies, documentaries, academic projects, and an exhibit and events at the Smithsonian, with more to come ( particularly in Maryland, the site of its composition in the midst of the War of 1812) closer to the anthem’s actual Sept.
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