Pacifist Indiana College Dumps My Least Favorite Song

Goshen College, 1915

This just in from my Yahoo Newsfeed:  Indiana's Goshen College, a Mennonite institution whose motto is "Healing the World, Peace by Peace," is no longer playing the Star-Spangled Banner before sporting events, supplanting it instead with America the Beautiful.  A more complete story, along with what will be over 11,000 raging comments, is found here.

A little bit of back story is necessary, if you please.  Lest we believe those who might insist that our national anthem is as old as the country itself, the tune--"To Anacreon in Heaven"--penned for a London mens' social club by John Stafford Smith, may very well be.  It is, in fact, believed to have been written by a mere teenaged Smith sometime in the 1760s.  The chorus, containing the text "And long may the sons of Anacreon intwine the myrtle of Venus with Bacchus' vine," certainly portrays the tune's genesis as a kind of fraternal drinking song. 

Everyone knows the story of the writing of the lyrics:  Francis Scott Key, watching the bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry aboard ship was struck by the sight of the "star-spangled banner" still waving above the fort after the night-long siege.  His poem, originally titled "Defence of Fort McHenry" would become known by its current title only after the fact.  Many other tunes would proclaim American officialdom throughout the nineteenth century, including "Hail Columbia!" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee," which was eventually nixed due to its employment of the same tune as "God Save the King," the anthem of our original transgressor, Great Britain.  The "Star-Spangled Banner" was not adopted as our official anthem until a congressional resolution of 1931.  For the record, the combination of Katherine Lee Bates poem and Samuel A. Ward's tune Materna into "America the Beautiful," first appeared in 1910.

Of course, all anyone knows of Key's text (if known at all, thank you Christina Aguilara) is the first of four verses.  The entire poem follows:

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,
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?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto:  "In God is our trust;"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Key's poem is one writer's reaction to a horrific event of war.  With bombs bursting and rockets blaring, one cannot help but visualize the scene.  But is this how we desire to portray this beautiful land we call America?  When I remember many of the other nation's anthems (or even "unofficial" anthems like Smetana's "Vltava"--aka "The Moldau") I recall lyrics noting the beauty of the land or a promise to uphold the principles of the nation, not a reenactment of a battle.

Katherine Lee Bates

Compare Key's poetry to that of Ms. Bates, as offered below, again in its entirety:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.


 America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country lov'd,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

I well know why Goshen College chose this song as it expresses what the college is; what America is; what Americans are.  Of course, we've never even gotten to the music itself.  From a simple musical standpoint, which I feel strongly enough to offer expert testimony, "America the Beautiful" is a much easier sing.  The "Star-Spangled Banner" is difficult even for trained singers to manage, if they can remember the words.  Check back here for examples.

Or maybe the entire debate is a silly one.  Since when did patriotism become equated with athletic contests (and often violent ones at that)?  For me, I've always thought that the final words of the national anthem were "Play ball!"