Lemonada.
Brains on Universe.
Free!
Free!
Free!
That's a very high note.
Thank you for noticing.
Glee streaming streaming, and that's a very low note.
Well, I gotta really make sure my singing range is stretched to its full potential.
I'm singing the United States National Anthem, aka the Star-Spangled Banner, at my pet elephant, Hermes kickball game next week.
That's so exciting.
Yeah, it is.
But singing the song is a workout.
There's a huge range of notes from high ones to low ones.
And it has a pretty complicated melody.
Singing the song is like vocal gymnastics.
Have you considered taking lessons from the Star Spangled Banner itself?
Excuse me, what?
Yeah, there's a big anthem convention that happens every year.
You can meet famous anthems and get trained by them.
Get trained by an actual song?
Like, are there weights, laps, rowing machines?
No, even better.
Karaoke machine.
Let's go!
You're listening to Forever Ago, part of the Brains On Universe.
I'm your host, Joy Dolo, and my co-host today is Freya from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Hi, Freya.
Hi, Joy.
So today we're going to learn all about how America got its national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
So Freya, do you know that song pretty well?
Yeah, I would say so.
Have you ever tried singing it?
No, I don't think I have.
Oh, should we try?
Sure.
Oh, say can you see it?
Find the dawn's early light.
Okay, Freya, maybe we shouldn't sing it because I think I don't know the words all the way through.
I know the beginning.
Yeah.
But so proudly something.
So what do you picture when you hear that song?
Probably like a Twins game because when we go to those, they always sing it.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of sports events, the Twin Games, or even sometimes at school.
You'll still start with the Star-Spangled Banner and do it.
If you had a personal anthem, what song would it be?
I think Don't Stop Me Now by Queen.
That's a great song.
That's one of my favorite songs.
Don't stop me now.
If you want to have a good time.
Just give me a call.
That's a great song.
I think if I had a personal anthem, it would change every day.
But I think mine today would be that.
Do you remember that song?
Cause I'm happy.
I think that'd be my anthem today, because I've had so much coffee and because I've had so much coffee.
I'm so excited to go to the annual anthem convention.
The timing is remarkably perfect.
Yes, it is.
And here we are.
Anthem Con.
Wow, this place is huge.
Gotta have room for all the anthems.
All the anthems?
I thought there was just one national anthem.
No way.
Pretty much every country on Earth has a unique anthem.
But get this.
It took over 100 years for the U.S. to pick its anthem.
It wasn't chosen until 1931.
Wait, what?
Why did it take so long?
Great question.
It's a wild story with lots of song contests and lots of songs that were good, but not good enough.
Gotcha.
Makes sense.
It took a while.
Anthems are important.
There are songs that help bring groups together, and they're not just for countries.
My school had one.
This is the fastest version of my school song.
Fridley High will shine tonight.
Our team will win this game.
Ever true and ever loyal.
I don't know all the words.
Dear old Fridley.
So bold.
T-I-G-E-R-S-0-5.
That's when I graduated.
Did you like my school song?
Yeah.
There are also anthems for sports teams, queer anthems, feminist anthems and patriotic ones, just to name a few.
So how did the Star-Spangled Banner become the national anthem for the U.S.?
Let's talk to the anthems themselves to find out.
Oh, over there is the French National Anthem.
They were the first official national anthem adopted by any country.
Bonjour!
I'm number one.
I'm number one.
I mean, before me, there were royal anthems for kings and queens.
There still are.
But maybe you've heard of a little thing called the French Revolution.
Indeed, I have.
The French Revolution was a time in the late 1700s where the people of France were fed up with how unfair French society was.
They blamed it on their corrupt royal rulers.
Oui.
Well, the French national anthem, which is moi, started as a rallying cry that eventually became the official national anthem.
Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé.
Catchy!
I'll say.
Look around.
Now almost all the countries have them.
I started that.
How do you say trendsetter in English?
Trendsetter is English.
Oh, well, call me trendsetter.
Okay, bye, trendsetter.
So, where's the Star Spangled Banner?
I can't wait to meet them.
I'm sorry, did you say you're looking for me, Yankee Doodle?
Uh, no, I'm sorry.
Or me, the song known wide and far as Hail Columbia?
Who?
No, I'm... No one even knows who you are, Columbia.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes, much better to be like you.
Known as a children's song that originated as a way for British people to make fun of people from the US.
I can't hear you.
I'm not listening.
Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.
Yes, I love that song.
Is that you?
Guilty as charged, ma'am.
Why are you here at the anthem camp?
And sorry to you, Hail Columbia, but I have no idea who you are.
Well, I never.
I go like this.
Hail Columbia, happy land.
I'm so sorry, Hail Columbia.
She meant no offense.
Joy, this is a song called Hail Columbia.
Joy, it is a joy to make your acquaintance.
Enchanté.
Is that French you're speaking?
Aw, man, did that French anthem get to you first?
And this song is Yankee Doodle.
Up top, Joy!
Yankee and Columbia here were two of the biggest anthems in the early days of the United States.
Thank you, Freya.
Oh, you mean before the Star-Spangled Banner became the official anthem?
Hi, I'm the Star-Spangled Banner, and I'm so important and everyone knows me.
Oops, sorry, sore subject.
Very.
Yes, we were anthems, but never the official anthems.
Although some people thought we should have been the anthem.
Let us tell the tale.
The year was 1861.
People traveled by horse or train.
There were no telephones or computers.
Telegrams were the fastest way to send messages.
That's where messages were sent using Morse code.
It sounded like this.
Oh, yeah.
And then the telegram office would decode those dots into a message, write it out, and deliver it.
So much faster than carrying a handwritten letter across many miles.
Though people still sent those, too.
And, of course, the Civil War had just begun.
Oh, yes.
That was a war here in America between the northern states and southern states over whether slavery should be legal.
You are quite the scholar, Ms.
Dolo.
And at that time, the United States had no official national anthem.
The Civil War was a scary time.
Almost everyone knew someone fighting as a soldier.
People wanted to unite, and they wanted a song to help them do that.
A group of fancy men in New York City formed a committee to pick an official national anthem.
I thought to myself, this is my moment.
Hail Columbia, you shall rally the people!
But nope.
The committee immediately dismissed me, an already very popular anthem, as pretentious.
Pretentious is another word for stuck up.
And they said no to me too.
Said I was childish.
Well, joke's on them.
Could a child stick a feather in his cap like this?
Doink!
I don't think so.
So, did they pick the Star-Spangled Banner then?
Well, the Star-Spangled Banner was already a popular song back in those days.
But they didn't pick that either.
What?
Plot twist!
Yes, they eliminated the star-spangled banner saying it was so hard to sing that it was quote almost useless, end quote.
Almost useless.
Cracks me up every time.
It is rather amusing.
So the committee asked the public for help holding a new contest to find a song that would be both patriotic and pull at the heartstrings.
Within six weeks of announcing the contest, the committee received over 1,200 submissions.
That's a lot of anthems to listen to.
Indeed.
It took about a month and a half for the committee to listen to all of the entries.
And after all that listening... They finally selected a winner?
Actually, they selected zip.
Nothing.
What?
You mean to tell me out of 1,200 submissions, the committee couldn't find a single national anthem?
Pretty much.
In fact, the committee barely thought any of the submissions were good, let alone good enough to be the official song of the country.
Some members of the committee even called the submissions, quote, rubbish, end quote.
That means they thought these songs were hot garbage.
Yikes.
Well, sorry to both of you.
I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles.
Mmm, cookies.
Hmm, let's go.
I'm starving.
It was nice chatting with you, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle.
Catch you on the flip side.
Freya, let's also take a break and play a round of...
So this is the game where we take three things from history and try to put them in order of which came first, second and most recent in time.
And today's three things are songs sung at sports games.
We have We Will Rock You, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Get Ready for This.
So do you know these songs?
I know you know Queen.
I know We Will Rock You and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
Have you ever heard the... Get ready for this?
No.
Well, we'll just do our best guesses then.
Okay.
So which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?
I think...
Since I've never heard Get Ready for This.
I think that one came first.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game came second and We Will Rock.
You came last.
And Rock You came last.
Okay, so Get Ready for This first.
And that's because you're not really quite sure about that one, so it's probably from like 82 BC.
And then the ball game.
And then Rock You is the most recent.
Is this your final answer?
Uh, yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's lock it in and we'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the credits.
So stick around.
Want to send us something?
We love hearing from our listeners.
If you were inspired by an episode or learned something cool about history, share it with us.
Maybe you've been inspired to make up your own personal anthem or want to share the latest slang word you've heard at school.
Or maybe you've drawn a picture of Billy Possum.
Whatever you think up, tell us about it by going to braindawn.org slash contact.
We might feature it in our mailbag.
Thanks!
You're listening to Forever Ago.
I'm Freya.
And I'm Joy.
And today we're talking about anthems.
These are songs that have special importance for any group of people.
Which is really perfect because we're at the annual anthem convention, where us humans can learn from actual anthems.
Before the break we learned that the United States didn't have an official national anthem before 1931.
There were many contenders like Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle, who we met earlier.
But these anthems didn't make the cut.
In fact, nobody could settle on one anthem at all.
But during the Civil War, the Star-Spangled Banner got pretty popular.
It was written about 50 years before the Civil War during another war, the War of 1812.
In this case because it kind of was associated with this dramatic military victory that people could take pride in.
Oh, it's Billy Coleman.
I'm so glad you're here.
Joy, this is Billy.
I'm the associate director of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri.
And I research early American music and politics.
In the years after the Civil War, some people really wanted the Star-Spangled Banner to be the official national anthem.
The fact is that a lot of the people that were campaigning for it to be a national anthem were militaristic in one way or another.
So we're talking about groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution, or we're talking about veterans groups like the American Legion.
So people who had been involved in wars wanted the Star-Spangled Banner.
Makes sense.
The song is about fighting a war, after all.
But the song still wasn't chosen as the official anthem.
In the 1920s, there is a big debate about this.
It's very difficult for people to come to some kind of agreement about what kind of song should be the national anthem.
The 1920s is right after World War I ended.
That was a big war that involved a lot of countries around the world, including the U.S.
Yeah, and after this war some groups really didn't want the Star Spangled Banner to represent our country.
One group that didn't like the song was pacifists, people who didn't want war.
So you have like pacifists who don't like it following the First World War because they want peace.
And then there were music teams.
Because they don't think that it's particularly amazing music and it's like incredibly hard to sing.
So they push back against it in that way.
The Star Spangled Banner's melody started as a song that people would sing when they were drinking alcohol.
For this reason, people who were against drinking alcohol didn't like the song either.
Many of these groups thought I should be the anthem.
Whoa, another song?
Pleased to meet you.
Um, who are you?
Why, I'm America the Beautiful.
You know.
Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
Four purple mountain majesties above the fruity plumes.
It really paints a lovely picture.
Right?
I started as a poem by Catherine Lee Bates way back in 1893.
Catherine was inspired by the stunning landscapes she encountered as she traveled across the United States, from the Great Plains in Kansas to gleaming cityscapes like Chicago.
So you were a contender for the national anthem, too?
Indeed.
Indeed.
In 1927, there was yet another contest with a new committee of folks.
And this committee did agree on one thing.
They didn't want the anthem to be the Star Spangled Banner.
And they agreed that Catherine's poem should be the words of the anthem.
They just needed to figure out what melody to use.
You see, at the time...
That poem was set to a lot of different melodies, not just the melody we know and love today.
The judges were told don't pick a winning melody unless it was so good it would sweep people off their feet.
That's a high bar.
So, who won the contest?
We'll find out right after the mailbag.
I love checking the mail.
Ooh, let's see what we got here.
Hi, Joydolo.
I'm Nate.
I'm from England, London in the UK.
And I think that what we hear before we hear the listener mail is Morse code.
And I think it spells forever ago.
If it actually spells that, I think that's really, really cool.
Also, I really love the show and I am really excited for your new episodes.
Well, Nate, you got me.
It is Morse code.
And it does spell forever ago.
Y'all ready for this?
Great detective work, Nate.
Virtual high five.
Hold your hand up.
Is it up?
Okay, let's high five the air together on three.
One, two, three.
Great.
Virtual high five.
You're very strong.
You've been working out.
If you have an idea, thought, or question for me, send it to the mailbag.
Go to brainson.org slash contact.
Thanks.
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Okay, we're back.
I'm Joy.
And I'm Freya.
And we're learning about anthems.
We just heard how in the 1920s, a group of people held yet another contest to pick a national song.
They wanted these lyrics to be from the poem, America the Beautiful.
But they wanted a new melody.
And we are here with the song America the Beautiful right now.
Hello.
So, America the Beautiful, tell us, who won?
You wouldn't believe it.
Nobody.
Again?
It was an absolute flop.
I thought I had trouble making decisions.
Geez.
For real.
The people who didn't want the anthem to be the Star Spangled Banner couldn't agree.
But meanwhile, the people who did want the Star Spangled Banner, they were very organized.
Right, Historian Billy Coleman?
Groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution veterans groups.
They were just much more organized in support of, like one particular song.
And that kind of helped it officially get over the line.
That's right.
Unified support for one heck of a song.
Oh, here comes the big hot shot, Star Spangled.
The Star Spangled Banner?
That's right, it's me, the Star Spangled Banner, the official United States National Anthem.
We've been looking all over for you.
Of course you were.
Some people think you're really hard to sing.
I am some people.
I like to think it takes someone with range singing so high and then so low.
Isn't it fun?
That's one way to put it.
What can I say?
I'm a glass half full kind of anthem.
Some might say I'm hard to sing.
I like to think I keep people on their toes.
And who cares anyway?
I won!
Well, you may be the official national anthem, but every year at the Super Bowl they also sing America the Beautiful.
Oh, beautiful America For spacious skies, for amber waves of rain.
They also sing Lift Every Voice and Sing.
That song comes from the early 1900s and it is known as the Black National Anthem.
Lift every voice and sing.
So when you hear these different songs, you can think, which one resonates with me?
Which one represents the country as I hope it can be?
And that's a really good way of being a citizen is to engage with that question over and over again.
And I think that's sort of where the anthem can be at its best.
Thanks, Billy.
And thanks, Freya, for bringing me to AnthemCon.
Joy, Freya, I'm so glad I found you.
Yankee Doodle went to the mac and cheese food truck and now his hat is covered in macaroni.
I need some help cleaning him up.
Let's go.
I'll be back for some vocal training soon, Starry.
BRB!
An anthem is a song that helps bring a group of people together.
It is supposed to represent them.
Many countries have an official national anthem, and for the U.S., it's the Star Spangled Banner.
It took over 100 years for the country to pick that song and lots of people were against it at the time.
But eventually, the Star Spangled Banner was made the official anthem, beating out other popular songs like Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and America the Beautiful.
This episode was written by Molly Bloom and it was produced and fact-checked by Ruby Guthrie.
It was edited by Sandon Totten.
Engineering help from Matt Castor with sound design by Rachel Breeze.
Original theme music by Mark Sanchez.
And if you want access to ad-free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our Smarty Pass.
Okay, Freya.
It's time.
Are you ready to hear the answers for first things first?
Okay.
Okay.
Well, just as a reminder, let's see.
Your first one was get ready for this and then take me out to the ball game, and then we will rock you.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
Let's see.
Drum roll.
Okay.
Well, I'll tell you what, this was not an easy one.
It was not easy.
So the first one was actually Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And so that was written in 1908.
So that's right around when I was born.
That's a joke.
I'm only in my early 20s.
The original lyrics were not the ones we sing today.
They actually focused on a baseball fan named Katie Casey.
And this is interesting because at the time, women were fighting for the right to vote.
And this was a very popular song celebrating an opinionated woman who loves baseball.
Do you like baseball?
Yeah.
Cool.
Do you play at all?
I play softball.
Oh, cool.
Cool.
I used to play when I was your age, too.
Well, copies of the sheet music even featured a photograph of a suffragette, a famous woman who was leading the fight for women's right to vote.
That is cool.
I didn't know the history behind that song, but I've heard it before.
Yeah.
At ball games.
Well, I'm eating a hot dog.
That's true.
It all goes together.
And then second was from the band that you know very well, Queen, was We Will Rock You.
And so that debuted in 1977 and was designed as a song to have audience participation, which is what motivated the famous stomp stomp, clap rhythm, that dum dum dum, dum dum.
So they were inspired to have more audience participation when the crowd at one of their shows spontaneously started singing You'll Never Walk Alone, which is the anthem of the Liverpool soccer team.
Do you play soccer at all?
No.
Yeah, I don't either.
You know what it is?
It's lots of running and my knees hurt because I'm old.
So suckers in my in my past.
So Get Ready for This came out in 1991 and it's by Belgian and Dutch group Two Unlimited.
I don't think I've actually heard of them before.
But I do remember this song.
Did you ever see the movie Space Jam?
No, I don't think I have.
Oh, that's from when I was younger, too.
But the song became a part of Jock Jams, which is a collection of exciting songs meant to pump you up, put together and released by the sports TV channel ESPN.
And before you could easily make playlists on a music streamer, people needed to buy CDs in order to hear a bunch of different artists in one place.
Have you seen a CD before?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have a CD?
Um, I don't think we do.
It's pretty similar to like a DVD.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Were you surprised by any of these answers?
Yeah.
I didn't know that Take Me Out to the Ballgame was that old.
Yeah, I didn't either.
And it's also cool that I was involved with like women's rights and suffragettes and stuff.
I think that's pretty cool.
Join us next week for an episode all about skin care.
Thanks for listening.
