![]() ![]() O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? O say does that star- spangled banner yet wave ![]() Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?Īnd the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming, O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, Here are all the four verses, as they were written more than 200 years ago by Key: While the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is widely known by the American public, the last three verses are generally omitted in performances. What are the forgotten verses of the “Star-Spangled Banner”? The tune has kicked off ceremonies of national importance and athletic events ever since. Fittingly, one of Fitzgerald’s working titles for his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was ‘Under the Red, White and Blue’.More than a century later, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order designating “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem, and in 1931, the US Congress confirmed the decision. Scott Fitzgerald – who was Key’s second cousin, three times removed. By then, his name was attached to another famous American writer, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald – better known as F. If things had been a little different, ‘ Hail, Columbia’, ‘ America the Beautiful’, or even ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee’ were all contenders for that honour.įrancis Scott Key was, of course, long dead by the time his poem became the lyrical basis for his country’s national anthem. So, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ started life as a poem called ‘The Defence of Fort M’Henry’, was written not by one of America’s leading poets of the day but by an amateur, and – despite being written in 1814 – only became the official US national anthem in 1931. These words, of course, have become famous beyond the poem (or song): many people refer to the United States as the ‘land of the free’, especially. Throughout ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Francis Scott Key uses the refrain, ‘O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave’. ![]()
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