Marc Ferris

Marc Ferris earned an M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Time Out New York, Spin, Vibe, and elsewhere. The idea for this book began in 1996. Almost every American knows The Star-Spangled Banner and the 200th anniversary would arrive in the not-too-distant future. The song obviously had a lot of history - and controversy - behind it: think Jimi Hendrix. Though Americans may revere the anthem for its official status, I had never heard anyone praise the tune. Everyone gripes that it is hard to sing, no one can remember the words of the first verse (there are four) and it is allegedly war-like. When I realized that it took Congress 117 years from the song's inception to make it the anthem and surmised (incorrectly) that they did so to bind the country through patriotism during the Great Depression in 1931, I figured I had a decent paper topic. To my surprise, I discovered that few books had been written about what I contend is the most controversial song in United States history and after conducting research, I knew had discovered something big. For the song's 200th birthday, the best present we can offer is to dispel the pervasive myths that have persisted throughout the centuries. In part, Francis Scott Key is partly to blame for an endemic lack of knowledge about the national anthem. Myth 1: Key wrote a poem that someone else later matched with the melody of a song that originated in England called To Anacreon in Heaven. Myth 2: Key called his poem The Defence of Fort M'Henry. This is a big one, often repeated. Myth 3: The song is war-like. Myth 4: The Star-Spangled Banner first aired at a sporting event during the 1918 World Series. When I appeared on a TV news program, at the very moment I debunked this falsehood, the news ticker flashed this non-fact. Myth 5: Jimi Hendrix played the first controversial version of the song at Woodstock in 1969. Many books detail the remarkable events surrounding the song's creation by Francis Scott Key; this one tells the rest of the story and takes the narrative through the present day. Anyone who reads it will never hear the anthem the same way again, since it also drops a lot of fun, unknown facts. Here are just four out of 30: --Shakespeare coupled the words "star" and "spangled" in two of his plays. --The original song to which Key fused his words is indeed a paean to the joys of music, alcohol and sex. - One of the greatest ironies in U. S. history is that a slave-holding southerner whose entire family supported the Confederacy wrote the Northern anthem while an anti-slavery Northerner wrote the Southern anthem (Dixie). - Anyone carrying U. S. currency has a piece of The Star-Spangled Banner in his or her pocket or purse: the government printed the phrase "In God We Trust," parsed from a line in the song's fourth verse, "In God Is Our Trust," and printed it on coins beginning in the Civil War and on paper bills since 1957.