Our National Anthem

O say, can you sing it?

by:  DAVID HARPER, World Staff Writer
Tulsa World
Saturday, September 15, 2007

Most adults don't know the words, but a Monte Cassino teacher makes sure a new generation can belt it out.

Oh, say can you sing the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner?"

A recent poll showed that less than 40 percent of Americans know all the words to their national anthem.

However, the first- through eighth-grade students at Monte Cassino School know the lyrics, and they proved it by the dawn's early light Friday, the 193rd anniversary of the day that Francis Scott Key wrote the song that would make him famous.

Key died in 1843, but he has his own unofficial Web site, www.tulsaworld.com/francisscottkey.

It says the song reflects Key's feelings on the morning of Sept. 14, 1814, when he saw the American flag had survived a night of intense fighting with the British during the War of 1812.

However, Monte Cassino second-grader Kale Keeling already knew all that. The 8-year-old can tell you about the factors that led to the war ("they were stealing our sailors") and how the Brits burned part of Washington, D.C., as part of the hostilities.

Kale and fellow Monte Cassino second-grader Rebecca Franklin said they like the song, although the words are a little hard to understand.

Befittingly for a song written by an attorney who practiced almost 200 years ago, the lyrics are about as easy to navigate as Chesapeake Bay on the night of the battle that Key immortalized.

Let's face it, "what so proudly we hailed" rarely comes up in conversation anymore.

The same Harris Poll showed only 39 percent of those who described themselves as knowing the words to the anthem answered correctly when asked what comes after "whose broad stripes and bright stars."

Correct answer: "through the perilous fight," not night.

Of those with a firm handle on the song, 58 percent had at least five years of musical training in school. That's where Monte Cassino instructor Joanne Pearson enters the picture. Friday's event, which featured about 600 students belting out the song, was her idea. In her 24th year at Monte Cassino, Pearson teaches music to the elementary school-aged students there ("I don't teach anyone taller than me," she says.).

Pearson said she was in Washington, D.C., in June for the National Anthem Project Grand Finale in which more than 1,200 school children stood in the formation of the United States and sang the song.

She said she told her students to notice how many adults don't actually sing when the anthem is played at public gatherings. Pearson said she challenged them to be part of a generation that will sing along with the song, which became the national anthem in 1931.

Of course, "The Star-Spangled Banner" has its detractors. Some say that it is no match musically for "Oh, Canada"and many other national anthems.

Also, many will tell you that "God Bless America" is easier to sing. Of course, "God Bless America" was written by noted composer Irving Berlin. Key, on the other hand, was a onehit wonder.

An amateur poet, his "Defence of Fort McHenry" was hastily written on the back of a letter and was later set to the music of a popular British drinking tune, "The Anacreontic Song," according to Key's Web site. Still, like the flag he wrote about in 1814, it survives and, thanks to the students at Monte Cassino – and others like them, thrives.

david.harper@tulsaworld.com

Francis Scott Key's Unofficial Website: www.tulsaworld.com/francisscottkey

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