Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
It is already the month of July.
If you are listening to this podcast when it first comes out, it is the first week of July, which means that this week we have Independence Day here in the United States.
Now, Independence Day is the day that we celebrate here in the United States that commemorates the founding of our nation, our independence from the British.
We celebrate it on the 4th of July every year, and it is one of the bigger holidays that we have here in the United States.
There's lots of fireworks, there's lots of barbecues and parties, and it's one of those days to just celebrate the founding of our nation.
Now, because it is this week, because Independence Day is this week, I want to talk a little bit about the national anthem.
Our national anthem here in the United States is the Star Spangled Banner, which refers to the flag of the United States.
There are stars on our flag, and because of that, our national anthem is called the Star Spangled Banner.
I want to talk about the history of this anthem, why it was written when it became the official anthem of the United States, and why it's controversial, why some people do not like this anthem and want it to be changed, and to have something else become the national anthem.
So let's get into this, let's discuss these issues, and let's begin.
Now, before we get started, I just want to remind you to check out the description of this podcast episode, and look at the vocabulary list that I make.
I make these for every episode.
It has the words and phrases that I use, along with their definitions.
Now, let's talk about the Star Spangled Banner and why it was written.
The Star Spangled Banner was actually not called that when it was first composed.
It was written by a man called Francis Scott Key, who was a lawyer and an amateur poet.
Francis Scott Key was in Baltimore, Maryland in 1814.
During this time period, there was a war going on, the War of 1812, as we call it, and this war was between the British and the American forces.
Now, the United States became a nation in 1776, which means that during this war, the War of 1812, the nation was less than 40 years old.
It was a relatively young country, and it was again at war with the British.
In September of 1814, the British forces bombed a fort that's in Baltimore, Maryland, which is called Fort McHenry.
Francis Scott Key was on a nearby ship, and he saw this attack.
He saw the British forces bombing Fort McHenry, and the next day, the next morning, he looked out and saw that the American flag still flew over the fort.
This meant that even though the British forces were attacking the fort, the fort had not fallen.
The British were not able to take control of it, and the Americans still held the fort.
He was overwhelmed and inspired by this moment.
Like I said, Francis Scott Key was an amateur poet, so he took an envelope, and on the back of the envelope, he wrote down a few poetic verses.
If you read the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner, you will see how they were clearly inspired by the attack on Fort McHenry.
I'm going to read the lyrics and say how they are referencing this whole event.
The Star Spangled Banner starts with, 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, through the perilous fight, over the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rocket's 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, over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
From these lyrics, these references about the broad stripes and bright stars is a reference to the American flag.
The rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, is a reference to the British attack.
And the dawn's early light is a reference to Francis Scott Key seeing the flag waving over Fort McHenry early in the morning.
The poem that Francis Scott Key wrote, he said it to the meter of a popular British drinking song at the time.
The song was known in the United States and in Britain.
And the poem that he wrote became an instant hit.
People liked it. It was a point of national pride that the United States had survived this attack from the British forces.
And that made this song very popular with people in the United States at that time.
Even though the song was popular, it did not become the official national anthem for over 100 years.
There were other songs at the time that were patriotic and popular.
For example, My Country Tis of Thee is another patriotic song that is set to the meter of a famous British song.
It's actually set to the British national anthem, God Save the King.
Every time I hear the British national anthem, I start singing My Country Tis of Thee because that's the song that I know.
And they have the exact same cadence, the exact same meter.
So there were other songs that were patriotic and popular at the time.
And Francis Scott Key's song was not selected for any official special purpose or designation at the time.
It also wasn't called the Star Spangled Banner.
He called it Defense of Fort McEnry because that's where the battle took place.
And it wasn't until 1916 that it was actually selected to become an anthem.
The country actually didn't have a national anthem for a lot of its history.
Like I said, the United States was founded in 1776.
It wasn't until 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order that made the Star Spangled Banner the national anthem for military services and other special occasions.
Then a few years later, in 1931, Congress created a resolution to make the Star Spangled Banner the official national anthem and President Hubert Hoover signed the resolution into law.
That means that the Star Spangled Banner has been the national anthem here in the United States for less than 100 years.
It's a relatively new national anthem.
However, it's one of the most well -known national anthems.
It gets played at every sporting event, every graduation.
During the Olympics, when someone from the United States wins a gold medal, it's one of the most well -known national anthems.
However, there is some controversy with it.
The first part is that the national anthem is notorious for being a difficult song to sing.
Now, what notorious means, it's famous, but in a bad way.
Everyone knows this bad thing about something.
That's what notorious means.
And the Star Spangled Banner is notorious for being hard to sing.
People have difficulty singing the national anthem because of the key that it's in, because of the vocal range that's needed to sing it well.
There's a lot of examples of people who have tried to sing the national anthem and have not done such a good job.
It gets talked about when someone messes up with the national anthem during a sporting event, for example.
A lot of celebrities have tried and sung it poorly or messed up with the lyrics, because the lyrics are pretty difficult to this song.
There are two examples of people who have sung it very well and have been recognized for singing the national anthem extremely well.
Both of these occurred at the Super Bowl.
Now, the Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event every year here in the United States.
It's the end of the American football season.
And it's the game for the championship between the two football teams who are playing in the Super Bowl.
Before the Super Bowl, someone always sings the national anthem.
And it's a little bit of a nervous moment for the person who is singing.
The first person who is acknowledged to have sung the national anthem very well at the Super Bowl is Whitney Houston.
Of course, she sang it very well.
Whitney Houston, her voice was amazing.
The second person more recently is Lady Gaga.
She sang it extremely well and she did it live.
Whitney Houston actually had hers taped and she kind of just mouthed the performance.
It was really just a recording of her.
But Lady Gaga sang it live and did a great job with it.
Everyone was talking about afterwards how good she sang the national anthem that day.
Besides being a very difficult song to sing with a very complex vocal range and difficult lyrics, the lyrics themselves of the national anthem are problematic.
Now, we don't sing all of the poem that Francis Scott Key wrote.
There's actually additional verses that most people aren't even aware of.
I can say that I was not aware of these additional verses until about five or six years ago.
And I grew up here in the United States.
I would say most people don't know that these other verses occur.
Now, what's difficult about this is that Francis Scott Key himself is controversial.
I said earlier that Francis Scott Key was a lawyer and during his practice of being a lawyer, he did some controversial things.
Francis Scott Key himself was against slavery.
Slavery was occurring at the time period that he lived in.
He was someone who helped people who escaped slavery and helped them when they were suing for their freedom.
And he was also part of an organization who helped these escaped slaves.
However, what the organization did was ship people who escaped from slavery back to Africa.
His organization did not believe in a multicultural society.
They did not believe in a United States where people from different races lived freely.
Instead, they took these people who were previously enslaved and shipped them back to Africa.
He also was a lawyer who represented people who were trying to get their slaves back.
And he also prosecuted people who were abolitionists.
Now, abolitionists were people who were against slavery completely.
They wanted slavery to be outlawed in the United States, which of course it eventually was.
But at the time it was a controversial position.
Not everyone agreed with them and Francis Scott Key actually did not agree with him.
Even though he was personally against slavery, he did not want it to be banned across the United States.
He did not think that people who were slave owners should lose their slaves.
And he owned slaves, which just makes this very complicated.
He was against the practice, but he owned slaves and he represented people who were previously slaves, but he also represented slave owners.
And this is just very messy and very difficult to understand.
This person was obviously very complex, had very differing opinions with his personal life and what he thought the law should be.
And part of his belief is written in to one of the verses that we do not sing in the Star -Spangled Banner.
From his original poem, The Defense of Fort McHenry, one of the verses says, No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
What this is a reference to is that there were people who were enslaved.
In the United States, who went and fought on the British side in the War of 1812.
The British forces had promised these people their freedom, that they would no longer have to be slaves if they joined the British side, and of course if the British side won.
And some people did that.
People who were enslaved went to the British side and fought against the United States.
So this line is referencing those people, and saying that there was nowhere for them to flee, there was nowhere for them to go, and that they would eventually meet their end.
They would eventually end up in a grave.
People don't like Francis Scott Key because of this problematic history.
We would say problematic means controversial, that people don't like what he did.
And so this problematic history, this reference to slavery in his poem that he wrote, that makes some people not like the national anthem and want it to be changed.
A couple of songs that have been proposed to be replacements.
There is a song that's referred to as the black national anthem, which is lift every voice and sing.
Some people want that song to replace the national anthem.
Personally I don't think that's going to happen because it has the name the black national anthem.
When it gets referred to by that name immediately there are some people that don't like that and don't want that song to become the national anthem of the entire country.
Another song that has been proposed is America the Beautiful.
That's another popular song here in the United States, another patriotic song.
And it is more inclusive.
It talks about the beauty of the country, the unity of the country.
And so some people say that would be a good replacement for the Star Spangled Banner.
Personally I don't see the Star Spangled Banner being changed any time soon.
I know that it's only been the national anthem for less than a hundred years, but I don't think most people know about the history of Francis Scott Key himself.
And I definitely think most people don't know that the Star Spangled Banner has additional verses.
I was a little bit shocked to learn that myself when I was first learning about that information a few years ago.
And so I don't think people are really aware of that whole situation.
And because of that I don't think the Star Spangled Banner will be replaced anytime soon.
But who knows, maybe eventually someday it will.
Maybe it won't. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
I hope you liked this episode.
I hope you learned a little bit about the national anthem here in the United States.
A little bit about the culture, the history, why it was written, and why it was adopted as the national anthem.
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