(1) ' The national anthem of the United States, based on the poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry", written in 1814 by the
35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the
British Royal Navy's Chesapeake Bay bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The poem -- set to the tune of a popular British song, and renamed "The
Star-Spangled Banner" -- soon became a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being difficult to sing. Although the poem has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today. "The
Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889, and by President Woodrow
Wilson in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover. ' --
Wikipedia(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the American national anthem is "pure balderdash", "gibberish sprinkled with question marks". (Which still doesn't prevent me from waxing sentimental over "Old Spangles", but then again I remain fond of ""Waltzing
Matilda" -- once called "the unofficial national anthem of
Australia" -- the jolly swagman's song now axed by the newly prim-and-proper Ozzies). -- Dinkum
EXAMPLE:
'
Trout and Hoover were citizens of the United States of
America, a country which was called
America for
short. This was their national anthem, which was pure balderdash, like so much they were expected to take seriously:
' "O, 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,
thru 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?"
' There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the nation Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 1 (pages 7 - 8).
