The Star Spangled Banner
The Star Spangled Banner is a beautiful song, when sung properly, as it was written and intended to be sung. This is a pet peeve of my sweet hubby. He cringes every time some singer puts their own new slant to the song, jazzes it up, 'nigger-fies' if up, makes it sounds like a rap or hip-hop song, rather than the beautiful melody that it was written for. I have listed the lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner, the real National Anthem, and also for the Black National Anthem, below.
Much to everyone's surprise, :A singer who was to perform the "Star Spangled Banner" at the presentation of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City address yesterday substituted the "Black National Anthem" without notifying anyone, because she says as a black,she just doesn't feel American "I pulled a switcheroonie on them," Rene Marie said in a report in the Denver Post.
Call me uninformed, but I didn't know there was a Black national anthem. Makes me wonder what else I don't know? Is there an Irish National Anthem, maybe O Danny Boy perhaps? Is there a Russian American National Anthem? Is there an Arab or Islamic American National Anthem? I'm just asking, wouldn't want to get caught off guard again.
lyrics: to Black National Anthem:
Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
In a video of the event, Marie had been introduced by city council president Michael Hancock, who said she would sing the national anthem. Instead, she sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing," also known as the "Black National Anthem," to the tune of the "Star-Spangled Banner."
Some of the strongest reaction, however, came from Denver area residents who were participating in the forum page on the controversy at the Rocky Mountain News.
"Can you imagine what it would be like for whites if we had a 'white national anthem'?" speculated "Jan8." "I heard someone saying this had nothing to do with race? What?"
"Was she asked to sing the Black National Anthem? Obviously her color is more important to her than this country. Is it a 'black pride thing'? Is she trying to tell us she wished the U.S. were a black country?"
The newspaper reports said the singer explained she had decided months ago not to sing the "Star Spangled Banner" anymore.
The Post reported she was being interviewed by a Russian broadcaster who asked her what it was like to be American.
"And I realized I didn't feel like an American, and that bothered me a great deal," the singer said.
She said she feels like a foreigner sometimes. (WND)
On the Star-Spangled Banner, the real one:
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, a then 35-year-old amateur poet who wrote "Defence of Fort McHenry"[1] after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.
The poem was set to the tune of a popular British drinking song, written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a London social club. "The Anacreontic Song" (or "To Anacreon in Heaven"), set to various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. Set to Key's poem and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner", it would soon become a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being difficult to sing. Although the song has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today, with the fourth ("O thus be it ever when free men shall stand ...") added on more formal occasions.
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889 and the President in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at ), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover. (more)
Mariah Carey - The Star Spangled Banner @ 2002 Superbowl below
Whitney Houston Star Spangled Banner below
Also some comments by someone who heard the Black anthem and his response., below
The Lyrics:
O! 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 through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets' 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!O! 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!
[8]
By the way, Whitney Houston rocks!
Posted by: Grouch at Right Truth | July 03, 2008 at 11:44 PM
It's good that she sang what she did. She no doubt would have butchered the real thing.
I watched a documentary the other day on the War of 1812. The British had already burned Washington and were pressing on Baltimore. Most have forgotten how close we came then to the loss of our democracy.
I can only imagine the pride Francis Scott Key felt when the British failed to take Fort McHenry and his relief to watch the British navy turn tail and sail away.
The Anthem should be honored and revered. Give me a military band and chorus performing this song anytime.
Posted by: Grouch at Right Truth | July 03, 2008 at 11:31 PM
Apparently, "she said The Star Spangled Banner doesn't represent her."
If that's the case, then i think she should find somewhere else that does represent her. Now that i think about it i'd like to see this fool turn away American soldiers or law enforcement authorities if they were to come to her aid, since the last time i checked they serve the Star Spangled Banner which apparently doesn't represent her. Unless off course she was just behaving like a stupid, insolent child who just wants to have a good whine.
Posted by: MK | July 03, 2008 at 06:29 AM