Is It Time To Rethink The U.S. National Anthem?

It's nothing political. It's purely musical.

I am a huge fan of worldwide sports events like The Olympics and The World Cup. It is inspiring to watch athletes perform and compete for their individual countries while also being united under a shared love of a particular sport. Fans cheer for their own teams while being awed by spectacular performances of athletes from the other nations. I love it!

Photo by Stefan Lehner on Unsplash

Yet there is a repeating moment in all of these events that has piqued my curiosity; the playing of national anthems.

For many countries, athletes and fans alike will link arms and gleefully sing along to their country’s anthem while it is played at the beginning of an event. Americans?

Well. Things to get a bit more awkward.

I realize that there are a myriad of political reasons why somebody chooses to sing or not sing, stand or not stand, or cry or not cry during the playing of our national anthem. However, let’s push politics completely aside for a moment and consider another reason why the potentially larger population of Americans may get a little uneasy when we sing The Star Spangled Banner.

Quite simply; it’s a musical tripping hazard.

Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely think The Star Spangled Banner it is an incredibly beautiful and stirring hymn. But that’s just it; it’s more of a hymn while being less like an anthem. Personally I’m beginning to think we could all use something a bit more “anthemy” right now.

It seems that the purpose of any national anthem would be as a means to unify fellow countrymen through song. Wouldn’t you want that song to be as musically accessible, engaging, memorizable, and simple as possible to ensure that the largest population would be willing and ready to sing it at any given time?

In fact, the original musical committee tasked with choosing our national anthem felt the same way. Although Francis Scott Key’s original poem was written in 1814, it wasn’t until 1916 that Woodrow Wilson began pushing to have The Star Spangled Banner played at most national occasions and even at the 1918 World Series. The song captured the attention of several congressmen who started to drive it towards being officially recognized as the U.S. National Anthem. However, The National Federation of Music Clubs argued against the song being chosen stating that the tune was too difficult for people to sing and that we should instead use America The Beautiful as our anthem.

Congress disagreed and The Star Spangled Banner was selected as our national anthem in a bill on March 4, 1931.

Musicians continue to unanimously agree that the tune is terrifyingly difficult to sing. This is because it covers a very broad musical range. An interval in music is the range that spans between the lowest and highest notes used in a song. Most songs don’t dare go beyond an octave range which is an eight note span. It’s just way too hard for most people to reach that kind of range without very serious musical training. The Star Spangled Banner? It covers a twelfth range.

Not only is it musically difficult to sing, but the lyrics are impossibly hard to remember. People very often forget or replace lyrics because without distinct verses or a chorus, it’s hard to know where you are in the song.

Lastly, it’s incredibly long. By the second minute, most people start to lose focus. And that’s only ever the first verse!

Francis Scott Key himself even understood all of this. His original song was first set to the tune of The Anacreonic Song which was a traditional British Gentlemen’s Club song. It was a tune that everybody knew and could joyfully belt out while drinking a pint with your friends.

Click here for what that would have sounded like.

It was Woodrow Wilson again in the 1900’s who gathered other writers in congress to ultimately come up with the tune we now have today.

So what ends up happening? We ask popular singers to belt out a solo of The Star Spangled banner at the beginning of our events and then we heavily criticize them when they inevitably hit a weird note or screw up the lyrics. The other option? Just play an instrumental version and we’ll stand there. Some people in the audience will awkwardly mouth the lyrics while others wait in stared silence because not a single one of us is ready, willing, or able to go full voice with this one. Especially if that first note was sung a little bit too high because then we’re going to be in a world of hurt when we get to the last line. Again, the song is beautiful and carries with it very real and patriotic feelings. But does it serve its purpose as a unifying anthem?

Photo by Chris on Unsplash

I think that in a time when we could use a little more unity in our country, let’s get back to old pub versions of our anthems. My wife suggested You’re A Grand Old Flag as a solid contender because it hits all of the key points (easy to sing, patriotic, simple lyrics, short, and has that sea shanty energy to it). Just watch during the upcoming Olympics in France as so many other countries will go full voice, full energy, and full respect to sing along to their nation’s anthem.

Let’s get back to linking arms and chanting a tune together as we celebrate our country through the unifying nature of song. It’s really next to impossible to do that with our current anthem and the unfortunate side effect is that the media, politicians, and citizens in general bash our very own athletes and fans for not singing the anthem thinking that it is because of some political reason. I think that it is more often because literally nobody except 1990’s Whitney Houston can sing this song and even she broke out in a sweat.

Hit me up in the comments with your thoughts on what could be another solid U.S. National Anthem choice.

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