Should Bruce Springsteen write a new National Anthem?

Did you ever wonder how and why “The Star Spangled Banner” became the National Anthem?

Me neither, other than poet Francis Scott Key wrote a poem, but being unable to write music, he took the melody of a popular British drinking song from a London-based Men’s Social Club and voila! The poem “In Defence of Fort McHenry” became the “Star Spangled Banner.”

We have to appreciate the irony of this. Francis Scott Key is standing there on the deck of the H.M.S. Minden, a British ship that was part of a flotilla bombarding Fort McHenry, the American fort on Chesapeake Bay, during the War of 1812.

By all accounts, certainly by Francis Scott Key’s description, it was a horrific nighttime bombardment, at least for the defenders in Fort McHenry and just west of that, Fort Covington. Cannon and rockets rained down on Fort McHenry during that rainy night.

The American forces prevailed, the British withdrew and on the way the British who were holding Francis Scott Key and his companion, John Stuart Skinner, stopped in Baltimore to release Key and Skinner who had gone to the British to ask for the release of some civilian American prisoners.

So the irony here is that what became our National Anthem was primarily written on board a British warship — which was the enemy at the time — and the music for it was taken from a popular British drinking song. In fact, should you visit Great Britain and wish to see something out of the ordinary in regards to tourism sites, you can go the Gloucester Cathedral and see a plaque commemorating the man who composed the music for the “Star Spangled Banner,” John Smith. I kid you not, that is his name: John Stafford Smith.

That’s the Cliff’s Notes version of how our national anthem came to be. That was on September 13-15, 1814. It didn’t become the official National Anthem until March 31, 1931, when President Herbert Hoover signed a bill making “The Star Spangled Banner” our official National Anthem.

That might not have happened if Robert Ripley hadn’t written in his syndicated comic Strip, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! this little fact (at the time November 3, 1929): “Believe it or not, America has no national anthem.”

Ripley was a widely read cartoonist at the time, like Charles Schultz and Garry Trudeau of our era. Many Americans, maybe even a larger percentage of the population than read Trudeau or Schultz, followed Ripley because in Ripley’s time the newspapers were just about the only way to get the news. Many more people read newspapers in the early part of the 20^th Century than today.

That’s the pathway Key’s poem took to become a song and then our national anthem … with a lot in between. Shortly after the song was created it became very popular, with people singing it across America. In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson commissioned three musicians to pick a standard arrangement for the song. Apparently Wilson was thinking of it as a National Anthem, but he never followed through.

The U.S. didn’t have a national anthem and as far as I can tell there was nothing in the Constitution about having one. So maybe President Wilson didn’t know, or didn’t want to bother with the process of making a song the National Anthem. He had just gotten our troops into World War I and that obviously had priority, as did a host of other foreign and domestic issues.

So a private citizen had to give our government a kick in the ass via the Sunday funnies (Yes, November 3, 1929 fell on a Sunday).

All right and there you go. Case closed, we have a National Anthem, at least for the past 81 years and it’s a pretty nice one that most people seem to like, unless they have to sing it. It’s got a couple of high notes that the average person struggles to sing. It’s an octave and a half range so it puts even trained singers to the test.

“The Star Spangled Banner” is the National Anthem most of us that are alive grew up with. There are a few people, aged 90-126 or there abouts, who might remember a time when we had no National Anthem, but it’s been around so long I bet they would have to strain the very fiber of their memories to remember what life was like without some big bodacious singer belting out the song before every sporting event.

• The Philadelphia Phillies started the tradition of playing the song before the game in 1897.
• In the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs it was played during the seventh inning stretch during all six games.

It’s unlikely a whole lot of people are interested in changing from the current National Anthem to a new one. Let’s face it: most people aren’t concerned enough to learn the lyrics, judging from the number of singers who flub the lyrics during the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, etc., ad nauseam.

Quick! Without looking, sing the first stanza of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Don’t worry about missing the high notes, nobody’s around to judge, unless you’re reading this at work, in the library or in you’re nearest MacDonald’s or Starbucks. Then just think the words.

• “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?”

We’ll forget’em before the start of tomorrow’s games. We’ll watch on TV and while the song plays we’ll mumble along, like we always do.

Just for the record: I’m not for changing the National Anthem. I really like this one and often get teary-eyed when it’s played, especially if the Honor Guard and Flag Detail are men and women in the uniforms of our military. Being in the Marine Corps all those years ago has made me sentimental about the National Anthem and the true meaning for the veterans of our nation. It isn’t just a sports song. Over a half million Americans have died in wars since “The Star Spangled Banner” became the official National Anthem.

But there are those who would like to change it. Clearly, a song that is totally American might be more appropriate. The music for our current Anthem came from Britain.

So it was with more than a little interest that I took note of a survey conducted by that estimable monthly magazine Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes, in which they asked a series of questions we’re not likely to find on any employment test.

• If you could go to your own funeral, what would you be most curious about? Fifty-one percent of respondents wanted to know what people were saying about them. Seven percent wanted to know how they looked in the casket. I’m getting cremated so …
• If your life were a movie, what kind would it be? Comedy, Action-Adventure, Romance, Low Budget Indie or Tragedy? If I could write the screenplay myself it would be an adventurous comedy.

There were several other questions, but here’s the one that caught my attention and set me on this current literary path: If you had to give the job of composing a new National Anthem to one of the following artists, who would you choose? Madonna, Jay-Z, John Williams, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton or Bruce Springsteen?

First of all I’m a little disappointed Alice Cooper isn’t on that list, nor are Sheryl Crow or Arlo Guthrie.  And how about Joni Mitchell? She wrote the anthem of the 1960’s, “Woodstock.” We could go on with others we think should be included on that list — some might be truly disappointed or enraged the Nuge (Ted Nugent) wasn’t included — so let’s just end the list of disappointment there and save the rest for our individual screenplays.

None of the seven received more than 50 percent of the votes, but The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, did get the most: 22 percent. Surprisingly (for me) Dolly Parton wasn’t far behind, getting 19 percent. Stevie Wonder came in at a respectable 18 percent and then it was Bob Dylan, John Williams and Jay-Z in that order, with Madonna pulling up the rear at 5 percent.

So we get Bruce Springsteen to pen a new National Anthem. Could he do it? Seriously. The National Anthem is a song that has to appeal to 99.99 percent of the population, taking into account that small sliver of society that never likes anything so they won’t like a new National Anthem — they don’t even like the current one.

Can Springsteen write a song that appeals to the most redneck of rednecks and the hippiest of hippies and still be enjoyed by that vast weltering melting pot of America known as the “mainstream”? That’s a pretty tall order and I would say there are five on that list who might pull it off, but really, could any of them do it?

You can’t use “Born In The U.S.A.” It seems logical, until you read/sing the lyrics. It’s a protest song, for chrissakes! But the one reason more people chose The Boss; he wrote a song called “Born In The U.S.A.” Most people don’t pay a lot of attention to song lyrics so they don’t have a clue, they just like the music and if the lyrics in the chorus are catchy, that’s what gets remembered.

But “Born In The U.S.A.” is a protest song against American power and involvement in the Vietnam War. That just wouldn’t sit well with some. Not to mention, there are a lot of conservatives who remember when Springsteen wouldn’t let Ronald Reagan’s staff use it during Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. I would bet there are more than a few that still hold a grudge and a few who might look at The Boss as a traitor for not letting St. Ronnie use his song.

No, you couldn’t use that song, but I would think “Born To Run” would be a good song. Or “Forever Young” with some minor adjustments in the lyrics. Hell, Rod Stewart did a pretty good job with the song.

Seriously though, if Bruce Springsteen was going to be the author of a new National Anthem he would have to write a completely new song that draws on his entire oeuvre, from his very first, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., Born To Run, to The River, Nebraska on through to Ghost of Tom Joad and beyond. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about life in America for the average Joe is right there in Springsteen’s 21 recordings.

If anyone could put what it means to be an American in one four-minute song, Springsteen is the guy. But Springsteen is a man who has a sense of justice about the world and it’s likely that would find it’s way into any anthem he wrote. That wouldn’t sit well either with some purists who think every song about America has to be jingoistic. Eh, fuck’em I say. They’re probably the same people who whine about wanting to “Take our country back,” now that a Democrat — and a Black one at that — is in the White House.

Still, the current National Anthem is a great song, commemorating a great moment in American history, during a war that finally, once and for all, told the British — and the rest of the world — we are a nation so get used to it.

Regardless of who is in the White House or which party controls Congress, this is the home of the brave and I really don’t think Bruce Springsteen, or anyone else, could improve on that.

Now as I end this thing I’m going to blast the Jimi Hendrix version heard at Woodstock on August 18, 1969, at about 10:15 in the morning. That will always be my favorite version.

You can stop reading now, we’re just jammin’ to Jimi over here.

Tim Forkes

Tim Forkes started as a writer on a small alternative college newspaper in Milwaukee called the Crazy Shepherd. Writing about entertainment issues, he had the opportunity to speak with many people in show business, from the very famous to the people struggling to find an audience. In 1992 Tim moved to San Diego, CA and pursued other interests, but remained a freelance writer. Upon arrival in Southern California he was struck by how the business of government and business was so intertwined, far more so than he had witnessed in Wisconsin. His interest in entertainment began to wane and the business of politics took its place. He had always been interested in politics, his mother had been a Democratic Party official in Milwaukee, WI, so he sat down to dinner with many of Wisconsin’s greatest political names of the 20th Century: William Proxmire and Clem Zablocki chief among them. As a Marine Corps veteran, Tim has a great interest in veteran affairs, primarily as they relate to the men and women serving and their families. As far as Tim is concerned, the military-industrial complex has enough support. How the men and women who serve are treated is reprehensible, while in the military and especially once they become veterans. Tim would like to help change that reality.

www.forkesreport.com