The Story Behind ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ Lyrics

A U.S. flag with 15 stripes and 15 stars, like the one that was flown at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, frames the Battle Monument in Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 12, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Team USA brought home 126 medals—including 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze—from the 2024 Olympics. As part of the closing ceremony Aug. 11, American R&B singer H.E.R performed The Star-Spangled Banner, marking a handoff from the City of Light to the City of Angels, host of the 2028 Games.

Many Team USA athletes were seen with hands over their hearts and tears in their eyes, not only at the closing ceremony but also each time The Star-Spangled Banner played during medal ceremonies.

“The song is a song of victory, and sort of relief, patriotic pride, but sort of hope as well,” Mark Clague, professor of music history at the University of Michigan, told NTD, sister media of The Epoch Times.

“All of those emotions are mixed up into that melody, sort of the heroism of the high notes, and the resolution and calm of the final phrase. All of that music is very intentionally matched to those words.”

In an interview posted by Team USA on X, swimmer Katie Ledecky said, “It’s been an honor representing our country here in Paris.”

Women’s Basketball player A'ja Wilson told reporters after winning gold, “I got my family here today. They sacrificed to be here. I’m so grateful to be able to win in front of them, and, obviously, our country as well.”

So how did the U.S. national anthem originate? Professor Clague says it all started September 13, 1814, when lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key was aboard a British warship off the coast of Baltimore, Maryland. Key was negotiating with British troops the release of American surgeon Dr. William Beanes when he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, two years into the War of 1812.

The attack continued into the night but when morning came, Key looked out across the harbor and saw the U.S. flag—made up of 15 stars and 15 stripes at the time—flying above Fort McHenry. The scene moved him to write the lyrics that would eventually become the official U.S. national anthem.

“It was Francis Scott Key witnessing sort of an unexpected and miraculous victory that he celebrated in his song,” Clague said.

Professor Mark Clague speaks to NTD via an online interview July 4, 2023.

The full national anthem is composed of four verses, written to fit the melody of a popular British drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

The first verse, commonly sung at events and civic occasions, is the most well-known.

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket’s 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?

It paints a picture of the attack on Fort McHenry. Amid the bombs, smoke and fighting, the first verse ends by asking: is the U.S. flag still there flying above the fort? The following verses answer that very question.

“Verse two talks about the land attack, the British Navy coming up against the city of Baltimore overland,” Clague said.

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream, ’Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

According to Clague, these lines describe the silence following the end of the attack and the uncertainty Key felt waiting for the outcome of the battle. The punctuation change from a question mark to an exclamation point at the end of this verse confirms the U.S. flag was the one still flying above the fort, indicating that the Americans successfully defended Fort McHenry and won.

“Verse three expresses Francis Scott Key sort of bitter anger at the fact that the British were attacking the United States,” Clague said. “He had sort of idolized the British. His own family was from Britain.”

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion A home and a Country should leave us no more? Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Given the context of the War of 1812, Clague said the “hireling” Key mentions is likely in reference to German soldiers, known as Hessian mercenaries, the British hired during the war.

In addition to anger, this verse is also Key reacting negatively to the Americans who sided with the British during the war, historian Marc Leepson wrote in his biography of Francis Scott Key. During the war, the British had a Corps of Colonial Marines that consisted mostly of slaves recruited on the promise of freedom.

“The fourth and final verse ...  is a verse of sort of his relief, his expression of victory, his expression that the country will be united,” Clague said.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation! Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto - “In God is our trust,” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

“In some ways, in 1814, the United States was not unlike today, heavily divided on partisan politics,” Clague said. However, Key was known as a pacifist and was against the war initially. But, when the British attacked his home in Washington, D.C., he defended it.

“That call to defend your honor, defending the nation was really what that final verse celebrates,” Clague said. “It ends up being kind of a prayer for peace, a prayer for hope of unity, and a prayer that the country will be strong enough to hold together and defend itself into the future.”

Clague says what makes ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ the U.S. national anthem stems from Americans coming together to build communities. He said every time he sings the anthem and struggles to hit the high notes, there is always someone standing next to him supporting him.

“I really think what makes The Star Spangled Banner powerful is the way it organizes and calls us together as a community, that calls us to serve us as citizens of the nation,” Clague said. “I think that’s really what being a nation is all about. It’s helping each other.”