Скачать или смотреть "Star-Spangled Banner" by Adrian Rogers (slow)

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is more than just a pre-game ritual; it’s a fascinating piece of musical architecture born from the smoke of the War of 1812. On September 14, 1814, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key watched a relentless 25-hour British bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry.
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Key wasn't a prisoner, but a negotiator detained on a truce ship who spent a rain-soaked night certain the fort would fall. When dawn broke, he saw a massive 30-by-42-foot flag—the "Star-Spangled Banner"—still flying, signaling an American victory that inspired him to immediately scribble the lyrics for "Defence of Fort M'Henry" on the back of a letter.
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Musically, the anthem’s history is a study in irony. Key composed his verses specifically to fit the melody of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular English tune by composer John Stafford Smith. Far from a simple "drinking song," it was the sophisticated constitutional anthem of London’s elite Anacreontic Society.
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The song's wide vocal range of 19 semitones makes it notoriously difficult to sing, a challenge that actually led to its official standardization in 1917 by a committee that included famed bandleader John Philip Sousa.
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Despite its 19th-century popularity and use in the military, it didn’t become the official national anthem until President Herbert Hoover signed it into law on March 3, 1931.
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Throughout the decades, artists have transformed this difficult melody into deeply personal statements. While Whitney Houston’s 1991 Super Bowl performance remains the gold standard for many, the anthem has been reshaped by icons ranging from Jimi Hendrix’s distorted 1969 Woodstock solo to José Feliciano’s soul-infused 1968 rendition.
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It even carries a complicated social history; during the Civil War, Unionists added a fifth verse to denounce slavery, while Key’s own history as a slaveholder continues to spark modern conversation about the song's legacy. From its origins in a Baltimore harbor to the world stage, the anthem remains a living, breathing document
of American history.
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Lyrics
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Complete version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" showing spelling and punctuation
from Francis Scott Key's manuscript in the Maryland Historical Society collection.
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O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O 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 - O 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 wash'd out their foul footstep's 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.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd 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.
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