The next time you hear it sung before a baseball game, just listen carefully. Musically, it’s hard to stand in an audience and listen to normal voices try to span the octaves without laughing. ![]() Though criticized for his style, he sang my favorite rendition of all time. The Puerto Rican native Jose Feliciano apparently did not. I suspect any recent immigrant citizen learning to speak English would have major trouble following its lyrics. Just look at the first sentence, which is really a question: “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?” The whole point of the song - the stars and stripes as a symbol of resistance to tyranny - comes late and indirectly. In addition to being a war song, the “Star Spangled Banner” is grammatically and musically complex. What inspired Francis Scott Key to write our present national anthem was the sight of Old Glory flying proudly “at the dawn’s early light” above Fort McHenry in Maryland, following a September night of cannon bombardment by British ships. It’s about homeland security, rather than the invasion of another country with “shock and awe.” I can think of only one good reason for keeping the old anthem. ![]() The glorification of war - of “rockets’ red glare,” and “bombs bursting in air” - ensures that more American children will grow up to lose their lives prematurely. I realize that this will take some getting used to. America should change its national anthem from the “Star Spangled Banner” to the equally familiar “America the Beautiful” especially its first verse.
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