The Star-Spangled Banner

Árið 1814 samdi maður að nafni Francis Scott Key ljóð um sigur Bandaríkjamanna á Bretum. Það ljóð heitir „The Star Spangled Banner“. Það varð vinsælt að syngja ljóðið við vinsæla drykkjulagið „To Anacreon in Heaven”. Uppruni þess lags er óljós en það er talið að maður sem að hét John Stafford Smith (fæddur 1750) hafi samið lagið. Það var ekki fyrr en árið 1931 eftir tuttugu ára baráttu á þingi að lagið var samþykkt sem þjóðsöngur Bandaríkjanna þó svo að sjóherinn og landherinn hefði notað það í fjölda ára.

Á Woodstock hátíðinni í ágúst 1969 spilaði Jimi Hendrix lagið mjög eftirminnilega og hefur öskrandi gítarsóló hans oft verið innblástur margra tónlistarmanna.

Texti ljóðsins

Oh, 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, now conceals, now discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on 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 wiped out their foul footstep's 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.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!