kellyann1293 Wrote:"ours was written by Beethoven ,and not in some Inn!!"
WTF is that supposed to mean anyway?
Hey KellyAnn ...
Here is an answer to your "WTF" question about our national anthem and the "Inn" which DutchGuy so refers.
"The Star Spangled Banner" tune itself is a melody which a group of highly educated/privileged Englishmen who called themselves
"The Anacreontic Society" sang while at a "drinking inn" in Gloucester, England
circa the 1760's. The tune itself is called "To Anacreon in Heaven" and is attributed to a member of this drinking Society, whose name is John Stafford Smith.
The "Anacreontic Society" was named after the Greek court poet Anacreon
circa 6 BC whose poems were appropriately termed "anacreontics." Anacreon's audience were the aimless rich patrons of the gods Teos and Anthens. As such, his poems had themes about wine, women and song, and today would be called ...
well, to be politically correct .. "erotic" while a more forthright description would be outright pornographic.
Soooo now enters one American lawyer and part-time poet named Francis Scott Key. He had become stranded aboard a British vessel on the evening of Tuesday, September 13, 1814 during the "War of 1812" in the harbor near Baltimore, Maryland. While there, he witnessed the English attack Fort McHenry, and penned prose on the back of a crumpled envelope as to what he was viewing.
Once back on land, on Friday, September 16, 1814, Francis Scott Key found the crumpled envelope stuffed into his trouser pocket and decided to further expand and embellish it in the form of poetry. By the time he had finished, he had penned four verses which he titled "In Defence of Fort M'Henry." He then shared his new poem with his brother-in-law, a local Judge, who liked it so much he had it immediately printed onto handbills by the following Monday. Key's brother-in-law then freely distributed the handbills to local residents and had a batch delivered to those still alive in Fort McHenry.
Key's brother-in-law later further pondered, discovering that the verses rhymed quite well with the now popular baudy Englishmen drinking song here in the USA ... you got it, our earlier discussed "To Anacreon in Heaven." Soooo the poem was set to this well-known drinking song BUT renamed
"The Star-Spangled Banner."
"The Star-Spangled Banner" became increasingly popular, particularly after the American Civil War and even more so at the turn of 19th century. However, it took until March 3, 1931 for the U S Congress (LOL, some things NEVER change !) to enact "The Star Spangled Banner" as the official national anthem of the USA.
I know it is hard to fanthom, but the tune of our national anthem combined with the Key's verses identifies us as a NEW separate nation from England ... yet half of it (the tune itself) ACTUALLY comes from a group of boozed up privileged Englishmen IN ENGLAND who were inspired by an ancient Greek
porn writer!!
Brings new meaning to Mark Twain's observation and quote that the "Truth is stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."
- WT Reader
