Jose can you see?

I know it is an old joke, but Eve has been asking me to play this on the piano for her all day. We sang it in church yesterday and I was reminded how much I love our National Anthem. (And she really thinks it is Jose.)

Before moving out here, I loved the song. I always loved standing at the beginning of High School ball games and singing as loud as I could to the tune of the band. (side note here, I was always bothered when we played against Boise High and they shrieked "Home of the BRAVE", how irreverent of them! -- and so sneaky to get their mascot named in the national anthem!) I was vaguely familiar with the story behind it, but one trip to Fort McHenry and I feel strongly patriotic. As you sit in the Visitor Center at Fort McH, and hear all about the events of the night, about a 25 hour constant barrage of cannon fire in the rain and stormy weather, about the courageous men and women fighting for our freedoms, about the tumultuous times our country was facing during the War of 1812, and then they open the curtain and you see the flag flying high, with the familiar strains of TSSB in the background... who couldn't be moved? It is also very cool to tour the fort and see the barracks and the cannons and look out over the Baltimore Harbor.

The first verse is nice, but the second and third verses are what get me all weepy and patriotic feeling. (and apparently what stir our congregation to sing "vigorously").

Here are the words:

1. Oh 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 thru the night that our flag was still there.
Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

2. On the shore, dimly seen thru 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 on the stream;
’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

3. Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved 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!

Text: Francis Scott Key, 1779–1843

Ok, Watch out, tomorrow you'll probably have to hear all about my Mom's favorite patriotic song, America the Beautiful and memories of driving through SW Idaho and her bursting out in song everytime we passed a wheat field.