As you probably know, Friday was Independence Day here in the US. I haven't been feeling much in the mood to celebrate our country lately, so I wasn't interested in finding a local fireworks display -- and anyway Santa Fe has been in a drought for pretty much forever, it seems like, and so setting off fireworks just seemed like a bad idea. (It didn't stop some of the neighbors, but then some people just want to blow stuff up and damn the consequences.)
But when the Santa Fe Opera sent an email saying they were offering tickets to this weekend's performances at 40 percent off, I snapped up a ticket to The Marriage of Figaro without thinking twice.
I like going to the opera, and we have a terrific -- dare I say world-renowned -- company here in town. World-class performances ten minutes from my house? Yes, please! Plus unlike most other live performance venues, the Santa Fe Opera has built into the auditorium seat backs a screen that shows what amounts to closed captioning. It's for translating the lyrics into English and Spanish, but it's pretty fabulous for hard-of-hearing folks, too.
Anyway, just before the performance started, the orchestra struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner". At the first strains of the song, the audience got to its feet, as did I -- years of public schooling trained me well -- and we began singing along.
Then I heard some guy in the aisle behind me say "something something Republicans". I don't remember his exact words, but what he meant was it was the sort of song you'd expect a bunch of well-to-do Republicans to trot out on the Fourth of July. Maybe he was trying to impress his date with world-weary snark, I dunno. But if I hadn't been concentrating on staying on key, I would have turned around and let him have it.
Our national anthem is for all Americans. I'm not about to cede it to the Republican party -- or our flag, either, which is what the anthem is all about.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the song is perfect for our times.
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| suti | Deposit Photos |
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key, a lawyer who lived in Georgetown, which at that time was still a sort of suburb of Washington, DC. If you want the whole story, you can read about it on Wikipedia -- but suffice it to say that during the War of 1812, Key and a couple of American companions ended up stuck on a ship in British custody as the Brits were about to bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore's harbor. The attack began at dawn on September 13, 1814, and continued for 25 hours.
Key and his companions realized they wouldn't know the outcome until dawn on the 14th: if the American flag still flew above the fort, it would be clear that it was still in US hands. And it did, and it was. Key was moved by the British defeat to write a poem that was published as "The Defence of Fort M'Henry".
It wasn't much later that the poem was set to the tune of "The Anacreontic Song", also known as "Anacreon in Heaven", that was written for a gentleman's club in London by John Stafford Smith. It didn't become our national anthem until 1931 (beating out "America the Beautiful", which is a heck of a lot easier to sing).
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"The Star-Spangled Banner" has lately been criticized for racist language in a verse that's hardly ever sung (fun fact: the song has four verses), and there have been calls for a different song to be chosen as our national anthem. Earlier this year, after Trump enacted his on-again, off-again tariffs, Canadians booed the song when it was played at sporting events involving the U.S. and Canada. And of course, there are the everlasting complaints about how hard it is to sing.
But think about its genesis. Key wrote it during wartime, in the thick of battle. He didn't know whether the battle would be won. Moreover, he didn't know whether the country would survive.
It's somewhat analogous to where we are today, except we're not fighting the British -- we're fighting the oligarchy and Project 2025. The ending to the final verse is so hopeful that it could be a rallying cry for today:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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"The Star-Spangled Banner" isn't perfect by any means -- but neither is the United States. And I'm not interested in relinquishing our anthem and our flag to those who don't believe in America's ideals -- freedom, equality, fairness, and the rest -- to desecrate.
That would be obeying in advance.
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These moments of patriotic blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Hang in there.
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