Anthem Project aims to restore song value

WASHINGTON -- "The Star-Spangled Banner" rang from the Capitol lawn Thursday, kicking off a campaign to reacquaint generations of Americans with the elusive lyrics of their national anthem.

Fearing "our country is losing its voice" because of years of budget cuts in schools, educators launched the National Anthem Project, aiming to restore the importance of Francis Scott Key's patriotic words and support school music education.

"We want to remind all Americans to cherish our national treasures and to celebrate our unity and our values in song," John Mahlmann, executive director of the National Association for Music Education, told a crowd on the west lawn of the Capitol before a performance of the anthem led by The Oak Ridge Boys and hundreds of school kids.
...
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Houston, was among those attending the kickoff. "Music is one of the easy things to eliminate because of budget cuts, but it's important to give kids the avenue to express themselves. We need to get kids singing about our history again."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/03/10/anthem_project_aims_to_restore_song_value/

SSB does nothing for me.

light across the unwealthy, and the weatlty sing from coast to coast!

Not only is it wrong for Imperial Amerika to sing the song of Old Free America, we need a NEW FLAG.

I suggest a simple, elegant, and appropriate change. Just change the field of blue to black, keep the stars and stripes exactly as they were. That says EVERYTHING necessary about Imperial Amerika and where it stands vs. Old America with an economy of change.

It's original and it was written by a Wellesley College professor named Katherine Lee Bates after hiking to the summit of Pikes Peak, Colorado...

Link:
http://www.fuzzylu.com/falmouth/bates/klbnotes.html

(snip)
In 1926, the National Federation of Music Clubs held a contest to put the poem to music, but none of the entries was deemed suitable. The poem has been sung to a variety of music, and Miss Bates never admitted publicly which music she liked best. Today, America the Beautiful is almost exclusively sung to Samuel A. Ward's Materna.

Also in 1926, a strong push was made to adopt the hymn as the national anthem. But the older, more established Star-Spangled Banner instead won official status when on March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a bill proclaiming It so. Even today, advocates of the hymn push for official anthem status.
(snip)

:bounce:

another candidate would be "This land" by Woody Guthrie. :bounce:

n/t

Not for me - I don't like the part about God shedding his grace. Same goes for God Bless America.

The Star Spangled Banner is fine with me as an anthem. Of course, I am from Maryland and a soprano - LOL.

By Woody Guthrie It's easy to sing, the music is not from an English drinking song, it's inclusive and nice. (and we won't tell the Republicans about the verse they would declare subversive.

Where the singer talks of seeing a "sign that says no trespassing, but on the other side it said nothing, that side is made for you and me"

:thumbsup:

Easy to sing, more modern language, same sentiment as SSB...

I've heard both nominated for replacement.

My vote would go to Guthrie's "This land is your land".

Pcat

of throngs of children in brown shirts and shorts with brown caps singing patriotic songs, all waving a flag while standing in formation?

Yes

When I immigrated to a country where I don't need to put up with the crap that is currently being spewed by those in the United States..

I don't need a stinkin anthem or a pledge...

a la Cabaret

but ultimately becomes ominous when the Fascists take over in the play.

n/t

They waste time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

a noted great great grandson of Francis Scott Key has moved or decided to move to Canada because America has changed.

as long as themselves express the sentiments of the national anthem.

Sounds like it's expression of approved thoughts only.

...you know you're screwed. Once a nation of violence and bloodshed, always a nation of violence and bloodshed.

Arise children of the fatherland
The day of glory has arrived
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised
Listen to the sound in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers
They are coming into our midst
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows

What do they want this horde of slaves
Of traitors and conspiratorial kings?
For whom these vile chains
These long-prepared irons?
Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
What methods must be taken?
It is us they dare plan
To return to the old slavery!

What! These foreign cohorts!
They would make laws in our courts!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would cut down our warrior sons
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brow would yield under the yoke
The vile despots would have themselves be
The masters of destiny

Tremble, tyrants and traitors
The shame of all good men
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will receive their just reward
Against you we are all soldiers
If they fall, our young heros
France will bear new ones
Ready to join the fight against you

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors
Bear or hold back your blows
Spare these sad victims
That they regret taking up arms against us
But not these bloody despots
These accomplices of Bouillé
All these tigers who pitilessly
Ripped out their mothers' wombs

We too shall enlist
When our elders' time has come
To add to the list of deeds
Inscribed upon their tombs
We are much less jealous of surviving them
Than of sharing their coffins
We shall have the sublime pride
Of avenging or joining them

Drive on sacred patriotism
Support our avenging arms
Liberty, cherished liberty
Join the struggle with your defenders
Under our flags, let victory
Hurry to your manly tone
So that in death your enemies
See your triumph and our glory!

Let impure blood water our furrows?!?!?!?!?!

Those nobility aren't good for much else.

I'm glad our revolution was before theirs so they can't claim credit for it.

in the blood of the nobility.

:)

Allons enfants de la patrie
le jour de gloire est arrive



:)

The Italian anthem by Mameli is not a joy either... Most Italians want Va'Pensiero...

Mercenary swords
Are feeble reeds,
And the Austrian eagle
Has lost his plumes.
This eagle that drunk the blood
of Italy and Poland,
together with the Cossack,
But this has burned his gut.
Let us gather in legions,
Ready to die!
Italy has called!

...that the scene in "Casablanca" where they sing this in the Nazi's faces never fails to send chills down my spine and bring tears to my eyes. Martial anthems have their moments, too. And it's STILL the best music of any national anthem I know.

However, my vote for a new American anthem would be this one:

We held the banner of hope and freedom
Against the dark of tyrant’s night
Though stained with blood, imperfect men
Stand ‘neath it, strive to end the blight
Of slavery, of hate and fear
And in our nation raise
The banner high in love and strength
To herald brighter days

America, thy promise grand
May yet be shining bright
While noble hearts and willing hands
Will lift true freedom’s light

A noble truth informed your birth, we
Aspired to justice, free from dread
Of despot’s hand or master’s whip
Despised the servitude we shed
America, a shining cause
For all whose gloomy plight
Would keep them hopeless, poor, and dumb
To serve the rich man’s might

America, thy promise sure
Still lies within our grasp
If we give justice to the poor
And friendship’s hand to clasp

Though hatreds past of race and sect have
Besmirched our banner’s cloth with rust
We look to now and future hope
Assured by Constitution’s trust
Our nation’s symbol we will cleanse
Our promise we’ll renew
For freedom’s hope will e’er outshine
The harm man’s flaws can do

America, thy promise grand
May yet be shining bright
While noble hearts and willing hands
Will lift true freedom’s light

musically,
Bright

(edited to add signature, oops...)
(edited again to move signature to the right place, double oops, not my day...)

made a point of correcting students who were singing "my country tisavey" explaining that it was "'tis of thee".

I agree that SSB is full of war imagery. It is ranged at a moderate difficulty level for practiced singers. The syntax of the lyrics is increasingly confusing to a younger generation. Essentially the gist is "if we're being bombed, at least it lights up the flag, hey it's morning, is the flag still up?" So our national anthem is essentially a bewilderingly-framed question asked by someone in a time of war. As parsed, it should end with a question mark.

"America the Beautiful" is a much more positive and singable song. It is more modern than "My Country 'Tis of Thee".

http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anthem.html

From a web-page on Fort McHenry:

It was the valiant defense of Fort McHenry by American forces during the British attack on September 13, 1814 that inspired 35-year old, poet-lawyer Francis Scott Key to write the poem which was to become our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." The poem was written to match the meter of the English song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." In 1931 the Congress of The United States of America enacted legislation that made "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official national anthem.

"The Star-Spangled Banner"

Oh, 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.
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 on 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.

(About America's enemies-- we will make you bleed):

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 wiped 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.

(And we'll kick enemy ass again whenever we feel like it-- and we'll do it in the name of God!):

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-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!

As a "sometimes" composer, I must also add that the "The Star-Spangled Banner" is very difficult to sing. Music composition workshops frequently use this song as the poster-child of what NOT to do when composing a melody for a song.

The song covers an almost two-octave range, and there are frequent leaps of up to six whole notes, up or down, from one note to the next. It takes an accomplished singer to carry off something like this adequately.

Also, the lyrics of the song are at points difficult to sing. There are complicated consonant patterns (e.g. "Whose broad stripes") that must be sung using eighth-note timing, which gives you a blurry, hard-to-sing and hard-to-understand song.

"America the Beautiful" has some complicated consonant patterns (e.g., "for spacious skies") but they are sung with half and quarter notes, so the phrase is much easier to sing.

Has God in it.

It'd send the Atheists into apoplexy.

It's a deist God, but it's a God.

was Nazi Germany piping their anthem from their capital.

I have no idea why I thought this.... ;)

As long as we're being jingoistic:


Columbia the Gem of the Ocean


By David T. Shaw


O Columbia! the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each patriot's devotion,
A world offers homage to thee;
Thy mandates make heroes assemble,
When Liberty's form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
When borne by the red, white, and blue,
When borne by the red, white, and blue,
When borne by the red, white, and blue,
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
When borne by the red, white and blue.


When war wing'd its wide desolation,
And threaten'd the land to deform,
The ark then of freedom'm foundation,
Columbia rode safe thro' the storm;
With her garlands of vict'ry around her,
When so proudly she bore her brave crew;
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white and blue,
The boast of the red, white and blue,
The boast of the red, white, and blue,
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white and blue.


Popeye the Sailorman would be so proud.

....unless they hear it in the cartoons. I had to learn it as a child, but then, I am older than some!

And the "value" of the anthem will increase, all by itself!

It's pretty sad when educators have to piggyback school funding onto patriotic songs ...

Which is, if you ask me, a return to the Volkssong of the Reich. On the surface, a completely innocuous-sounding initiative. Beneath it, the propensity for a sinister overtone - indoctrination. If anyone's complaining about American's boozy renditions and sloppy lack of adherence to a classic tune, it has nothing to do with trying to enforce the song vis a vis the Pledge of Allegiance. We need music education at ALL levels of education, and not strictly for patriotic songs. Music education is what provides a wholly different dimension to the understanding of the world around us, and is what accounts for such a great increase in awareness, tolerance, commitment, and humility.

Of course that's just my opinion.

America over all in the world..../sarcasm off

from the NY Times.....

June 5, 2004
One Way to Reach Anthem High Note: Just Make It Lower
By NEAL MATTHEWS

(snip)

Ed Siegel, a psychiatrist from this San Diego County beach town who cannot read sheet music but can play a thousand songs on the piano, wants to lower the key of the national anthem from B flat to G major. That simple change, he argues, would make the anthem accessible to even the tonally challenged. The words, of course, are another matter entirely.

"I've found that by playing `The Star-Spangled Banner' in the key of G major versus B flat, everyone is able to sing it," said Dr. Siegel, 64, a Colorado native who lives in Solana Beach and started a Thursday night community singalong in 1986. For 10 years he has been trying to get the anthem lowered three keys. So far, no one in authority is buying.

(snip)

"We sing at every meeting, and `The Star-Spangled Banner' is a heck of a lot easier to sing in G," said Ken Paulovich, the Rotary Club's president. "It's lower; you don't have to fight those high notes. The way people massacre the national anthem at ballgames, maybe this will make it easier for them to sing."

(snip)

Mr. Blakeslee's organization is set to unveil a campaign to revive interest in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner." The day chosen is Sept. 14, the same date that in 1814 Francis Scott Key penned the poem, which was later set to the tune of a popular drinking song. The campaign, for which Laura Bush is honorary chairwoman, is to culminate in a national singalong in 2006, when the Smithsonian unveils the flag that inspired Key, all 30 by 42 feet of it, now undergoing restoration.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00617FC3B550C768CDDAF0894DC404482&incamp=archive:search