... a work so encyclopedic, its chapters can be read per your inclination ... When Congress proclaimed the song America’s official national anthem in 1931, almost 120 years after its composition, it was acknowledging a battle that had been won long before. The question, which this immensely interesting and readable history sets out to answer, is how that victory was earned ... Clague even creates a detailed military map of the engagement to demonstrate how 'perilous' that fight really was.
Clague writes a historical and cultural account of the United States national anthem, which through wars and peace, civil and cultural unrest, and on battlefields and ballfields, has played an (ahem) key role in the national consciousness since Francis Scott Key penned his four (yes, four) verses after experiencing the Siege of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812...Clague does an excellent job tracing the tune back to its origin while detailing the way it entered the nation’s consciousness and has been used as a societal bellwether ever since, having both united people and created divisions...It’s a fascinating and enlightening story, well told here...An excellent and comprehensive history of the music and lyrics of the United States’ national anthem, Clague’s book should be in every library.
Readers may agree or disagree with Clague’s assessment — does the socially compulsory singing of a politically fraught song at a sports stadium or official ceremony really further national self-examination? — but his book matches rigorous scholarship with clear, engaging writing on a wide range of anthem-related questions ... As a musicologist, he has the vocabulary to bring melodies and specific performances alive with words, a skill he deftly uses to parse examples as diverse as the tune of the Anacreontic Song and Jimi Hendrix’s epic Banner performance at Woodstock ... Readers, again, may agree or disagree with his stance — my reading of the evidence is less sympathetic — but he presents his case competently.
A music historian and professor of musicology, Clague finds in America’s national anthem 'a surprisingly rich archive offering insight into the conflicts and complexities that forged the United States'...Contrary to the myth that Key penned his verses quickly on scrap paper, Clague finds that he composed them over 'at least sixty hours,' shaping the words to fit a familiar melody that had been composed by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century London social club...Because the complete version extols freedom and refers to both freemen and enslaved people, the anthem has elicited 'conflicted feelings in the Black community' and provoked controversy about whether it offers 'an inclusive vision of American identity'...Clague provides an informative elucidation of the anthem’s language for 19th-century listeners while conceding that Key—and his listeners—shared an assumption of White supremacy...Though Key represented Blacks who sued for their freedom, he also owned slaves, and although he believed slavery was morally wrong, 'nothing he said or wrote that survives in the historical record suggests that he believed Blacks could ever be equal to whites'...An engaging cultural history.
Musicologist Clague debuts with a sparkling study of America’s national anthem...He recounts how the successful defense of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry against the British navy’s bombardment during the War of 1812 inspired lawyer Francis Scott Key—who witnessed the battle from an unarmed 'truce ship' in the city’s harbor—to describe the event in lyrics set to the tune of an 18th-century song composed by Englishman John Stafford Smith...Noting that 'no other song of the era became so broadly popular so fast,' Clague analyzes the lyrics’ 'volatile emotional journey, from fear and uncertainty through relief and pride, to anger and determination, to pious gratitude and prayer, and finally to patriotic devotion,' and examines alternative versions penned to support abolition, unionization, and other progressive causes...Stuffed with colorful character sketches, intriguing historical arcana, and memorable musical insights, this pitch-perfect history hits all the right notes.
