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The Star-Spangled Banner (John Stafford Smith)
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- CPDL #17781:
- Editor: David Newman (submitted 2008-08-02). Score information: Letter, 2 pages, Copyright: Public Domain
- Edition notes: Cross posting by Art Song Central - Vesion prepared at the request of the U.S. Bureau of Education - Harmonized by Walter Damrosch - 3 Verses only - Edition in B Flat Major
General Information
Title: The Star-Spangled Banner
Composer: John Stafford Smith
Lyricist: Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)
Number of voices: 1v Voicing: Soprano Solo
Genre: Secular, Anthem
Language: English
Instruments: Piano
Published: "The Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889 and the President in 1916,
and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301),
which was signed by President Herbert Hoover.
Description: "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from
a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, a then 35-year-old amateur poet who wrote "Defence of Fort McHenry" after seeing
the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.
The poem was set to the tune of a popular British drinking song, written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society
in 1780, a London social club. "The Anacreontic Song" (or "To Anacreon in Heaven"), set to various lyrics, was already popular
in the United States. Set to Key's poem and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner", it would soon become a well-known American
patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being difficult to sing. Although the song has four
stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today, with the fourth ("O thus be it ever when free men shall stand ...") added
on more formal occasions.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
- 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.
- Oh, 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! Oh 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 victory 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!
