The Star Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics were written by Francis Scott Key in 1814 and set to the 1780 music of John Stafford Smith. The song was formally adopted as our country’s national anthem in 1931. The lyrics are below. See historical documents and listen to a video of how the national anthem should be sung!

The Star Spangled Banner, our National Anthem

The story of how our national anthem was written is one every child in America learns in school. It was on the rainy night of September 3, 1814, when 35 year old aspiring poet Francis Scott Key, being held prisoner aboard a British ship, witnessed the bombardment by British gunboats of Fort McHenry in the Chesapeake Bay. This action? A battle during the “War of 1812″.

He witnessed the smaller “storm flag” of the American fort continued to fly though it was suffering greatly under the brutal heavy shelling by the British. Once the shell and rocket barrage had stopped, he couldn’t tell looking out his small window into the dark of night just how the battle had turned out. But by the next morning, the storm flag from the American fort had been lowered, and the larger flag had been raised and was flying proudly signaling victory.

Francis Scott Key was utterly inspired by the American victory and the sight of the large American flag flying triumphantly above the fort. This flag, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, came to be known as the Star Spangled Banner Flag and is today on display in the National Museum of American History, a treasure of the Smithsonian Institution. It was restored in 1914 by Amelia Fowler, and again in 1998 as part of an ongoing conservation program. You can see an actual picture of the Star Spangled Banner Flag below the fold.

Don’t know the lyrics to our national anthem? Feel the Star Spangled Banner is just way too hard to sing? Some useful idiots would say that we need a new national anthem, but my feeling is that we have the most beautiful and inspiring one in the world. Just listen to Whitney Houston’s version below and you’ll agree.

O! 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 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?

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! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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 washed out their foul footsteps’ 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.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power 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!

More photos and a video from ‘Star Spangled Banner Lyrics: National Anthem Lyrics’ are below.

Star Spangled Banner Lyrics: National Anthem Lyrics Photos