(The first two bars are a direct lift, giving the character Lieutenant Pinkerton his cue for the aria Dovunque al Mondo, while “O say, can you see…” is used in later arias by both Pinkerton and Cio-Cio San, Madama Butterfly herself.) In the early 20th Century, the song’s appeal seemed unstoppable. The Baltimore Patriot newspaper soon reprinted it, and within weeks, The Star-Spangled Banner, as it was quickly known, appeared in print across the country, immortalising both Key’s words and the soon-to-be historic flag it celebrated.Īdopted by the navy in 1889, the song was quoted in 1904 by Puccini in his opera Madama Butterfly. Impressed by Key’s efforts, Nicholson took the poem to a printer in Baltimore and had it distributed it under the name Defence of Fort M'Henry, indicating the tune to which it should be sung.
The Anacreontic Song or Anacreon in Heaven had been penned for Smith’s aristocratic gentlemen’s club in London, but by the early 19th Century had travelled across the Atlantic and become well-known in the US. He showed the verses to his brother-in-law, Joseph H Nicholson, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, who pointed out that the words would fit perfectly to the tune of a popular English ditty written in 1775 by the composer John Stafford Smith. But as the smoke cleared in “the dawn's early light” on 14 September, Key watched in astonishment and relief as the US flag, not the Union Jack, was raised over the fort.Īccording to the Smithsonian Institution, which boasts among its many historical treasures that original star-spangled banner, Key was so overcome by what he had witnessed that he was inspired to poetry. “It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone,” he observed. As night fell, he saw the sky turn red, and given the scale of the attack, was convinced the British would triumph. Fearful he knew too much, the Brits kept him on board a ship eight miles from shore. The War of 1812 had been raging for more than 18 months and Key was negotiating the release of an American prisoner.
It was on the rainy night of 13 September, 1814, that a 35-year-old US lawyer named Frances Scott Key watched as a barrage of British shells rain down on Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbour.
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