OK, let’s acknowledge first of all that I might be–as the lawyers say–making an “admission against interest”–but I’d like to recognize the fact that Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner, was born 245 years ago today, on August 1, 1779. (Check the math, please; it’s never my strongest point.)
Key was an author, poet and lawyer who hailed from Maryland, and after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, he composed the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” The words–largely without modification–were later set to the tune of a popular song, Anacreon in Heaven, and the rest is history.
Key himself owned slaves for a time (as did many in those days), and as is often the case, history hasn’t been kind to him, even when some of the legends passed down are clearly mis- dis- or mal-information. He died of pleurisy, eighteen years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, on January 11, 1843.
The most recent mention of Francis Scott Key in the news of the day was most likely around the events of March 26, 2024, when a cargo ship ran into the bridge bearing his name along the Baltimore Beltway, resulting in the deaths of six people, and inestimable damage to transportation and shipping on the East Coast of the United States. One or the other end of the bridge (I’m not sure which) was located approximately where the British anchored, all those years ago, to shell Fort McHenry.
Ever since, there have been spirited attempts to rename the newest incarnation of the bridge for someone else.
Yeah. No.
History is history.
Deal with it.
Here’s my favorite instrumental rendition of the Star Spangled Banner from September 13, 2001. It’s true it doesn’t use Key’s words. But the sentiment is forever:
If you must have Key’s words (OK, I know that’s the point of the post), here you go:
The Star Spangled Banner: Long may she wave!
A lovely essay!