So, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ started life as a poem called ‘The Defence of Fort M’Henry’, was written not by one of America’s leading poets of the day but by an amateur, and – despite being written in 1814 – only became the official US national anthem in 1931. These words, of course, have become famous beyond the poem (or song): many people refer to the United States as the ‘land of the free’, especially. Other Lyrics National Anthems & Patriotic Songs Antigua and Barbuda National Anthem - Fair Antigua, We Salute Thee Danish National Anthem - Der er et yndigt land Olympic Hymn Chinese National Anthem - Guo Ge () Japanese National Anthem - Kimigayo () Cook Islands National Anthem - Te Atua Mou E Tuvaluan National Anthem - Tuvalu mo.
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(Ironically, in light of the circumstances surrounding the composition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, ‘Rule, Britannia’ is about the might of the British navy: ‘Britannia, rule the waves’.) Throughout ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Francis Scott Key uses the refrain, ‘O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave’. State Anthem of The Soviet Union (English 1944) Lyrics: United forever in friendship and labour / Our mighty republics will ever endure / The Great Soviet Union will live through the ages / The. This is a message carried by many other national anthems, unofficial or otherwise: one of Britain’s most popular national songs (although not its national anthem), ‘ Rule, Britannia’, proudly proclaims that ‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves’. The US flag with its stars and stripes waves freely over the land of the free, declaring America’s freedom from tyranny or oppression at the hands of another power.
(It’s worth bearing in mind that less than forty years earlier, the United States was still fighting a war with Britain over US independence.) But, in a clever image, Key says that the confident footprints the British left as they marched to attack the American fort have been washed away by the blood of the British wounded and slain it’s a neat metaphor that encapsulates the idea of arrogance being destroyed by humiliating defeat.īut freedom is the message that shines through more than any other. Nicholson who saw that the words fit the popular melody 'The Anacreontic Song', by English composer John Stafford Smith.
Where the second stanza called the British fleet a ‘haughty host’, suggesting it was sheer arrogance and superiority which led the Brits to attack Baltimore Harbour and Fort McHenry, Key continues this line of argument in the third stanza: the British navy ‘vauntingly swore’ that the confusion of battle would leave the Americans without a home or a country. The Star Spangled Banner 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is the national anthem of the United States.The lyrics come from Joseph H. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. No refuge could save the hireling and slaveįrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:Īnd the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution. That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,Ī home and a country, should leave us no more? And where is that band who so vauntingly swore