
Fittingly, one of Fitzgerald’s working titles for his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was ‘Under the Red, White and Blue’. Although Key was an amateur poet and not a. Here’s the History Behind the Lyrics Sheet music for Clotilde Ariass. The Star Spangled-Banner was not a poem set to a melody years later. History society The Spanish Star-Spangled Banner Is Being Used to Honor Hispanic Workers Fighting COVID-19. Scott Fitzgerald – who was Key’s second cousin, three times removed. Francis Scott Key intended his verses to be song lyrics, not poetry. By then, his name was attached to another famous American writer, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald – better known as F. If things had been a little different, ‘ Hail, Columbia’, ‘ America the Beautiful’, or even ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee’ were all contenders for that honour.įrancis Scott Key was, of course, long dead by the time his poem became the lyrical basis for his country’s national anthem. So, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ started life as a poem called ‘The Defence of Fort M’Henry’, was written not by one of America’s leading poets of the day but by an amateur, and – despite being written in 1814 – only became the official US national anthem in 1931. These words, of course, have become famous beyond the poem (or song): many people refer to the United States as the ‘land of the free’, especially. Between their loved home and the wars desolation Blest with victory and peace, may the heavn-rescued land. Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand.


Oer the land of the free and the home of the brave. Throughout ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Francis Scott Key uses the refrain, ‘O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave’. And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave.
