Star-Spangled Bawler
The Star-Spangled Banner makes me weep. Whether it’s performed in a stadium or on a ball field, I’m a goner. It doesn’t matter whether times are good or bad for me personally, I get misty. Luckily, it’s pollen season here in Northern California and one out of ten people is sporting puffy eyelids anyway. Here’s what transpired yesterday:
I’m at a regional track meet in Rocklin, California. Shot putters are practicing their setup, parents are pitching pop-up tents like soldiers, and suddenly an announcer bellows, “Now please stand for the national anthem.” The lock-in-place beach umbrella gets plopped down, half-formed. The Hawaiian ice machine is powered off. The crowd’s silence is so palpable the low-fidelity hum of the speakers is audible. As if in a paralytic trance from a chemical rain, all are frozen in place. The pre-recorded instrumental track and live vocalist begin. At first, I struggle to still myself because my monkey brain won’t acquiesce, but I comply at the sight of people with hands over their hearts, caps removed from heads. As the melody and lyrics reach me — and this is not negotiable — I’m reduced to puddles.
When I first learned about the Star-Spangled Banner I was taught that it was a bar song. After yesterday’s reminder of this powerful composition, I looked it up, and yes — the melody to our national anthem belonged to a British drinking song. The lyricist wasn’t even a songwriter. Francis Scott Key was a Baltimore lawyer. But, seriously, if your name is Francis Scott Key, you’re going to be a songwriter.
In September of 1814 Francis was watching American soldiers triumphantly raise a flag over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. At that time, the soldiers at Fort McHenry were successfully holding down Baltimore Harbor while under bombardment by British forces. It was as if the Brits were in a badly written TV murder mystery where the assailant fires multiple shots at the detective in the same room — and still misses. British naval forces fired off more than a thousand bombs and rockets from their ships (the masterful alliteration of “rockets’ red glare” and “bombs bursting in air”) and only managed to kill four American soldiers. The flag our soldiers hoisted the next Wednesday morning symbolizing their obduracy didn’t go unnoticed by Francis (“and the flag was still there”). He scribbled out the first verse that morning on the back of a letter. He probably had only one verse in him, I’m imagining, due to a hangover after a night of heavy Rye Whiskey consumption. Excessive drinking was pandemic then. Over time, Francis wrote the rest of the lyrics and called his poem Defence of Fort M’Henry, but the version we all know is the abridged version. As with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah — originally 80 verses long — we never hear all the verses Francis penned. Even as brief as the two-minute tune is, vocalists still figure out a way to mangle the words. Yep, “Star-Mangled Banner” is a thing, and the list of famous manglers includes Steven Tyler, Cuba Gooding, Sr., Christina Aguilera, Rachel Platten, Michael Bolton, and others.
Musically speaking, you’d have to possess nerves of steel or an illegal calming agent to accept an invitation to sing it. When you’re on “banner yet wave” you have to either twist those notes around in a vine (a la Jennifer Hudson) or serve it direct and strong with a dearth of embellishment (a la Whitney Houston). By the time you hit that penultimate line, you better be darn sure of your octave range. Even the best vocalists have cracked on it. It’s the incremental pitch increase throughout the song, the notes taking us higher and higher with each new phrase and culminating with that stratospheric note — freeEEEeee! — that is so thrilling to an audience. In a way, the song’s structure from beginning to end suggests the upward scaling, the climbing that we Americans do in our pursuit of life, liberty, and a low-to-no-down payment mortgage.
Other riveting anthem performers who come to mind are Renée Fleming, Lady Gaga, and Aretha Franklin. One vocalist who went viral in the summer of 2018 was this multi-tasking Maryland high school football player, Jackson Dean, now a country singer. His Maryland school was just 14 miles from Fort McHenry: Jackson Dean Sings National Anthem. He’s wearing his defensive end uniform. His interpretation is uniquely his, and he’s sporting a seasoned guitar that tells the story of a young man who’s played music with the same gusto he’s played football.
In 2017, researchers Kazuma Mori and Makoto Iwanaga produced a paper about emotional response to music: Peak Emotional Responses to Music. Their work addresses the emotional triggers we experience when we hear a select song. When you start introducing minor chords and bring in such triggers as patriotism, you get the weepies. My own flag-waving tendencies date as far back as Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School band (just 20 miles from Fort McHenry) when I sat behind Suzy Parker, first chair flute, and next to Craig Abplanalp, with whom I shared a friendly rivalry for first chair alto sax. While our band played a myriad of songs, it was the rousing Sousa marches that stood out for me. Parades? Give me a Fourth of July parade in my hometown of Washington D.C. any day. My parents are gone now, but I remember how my mother helped family members and friends prepare for their U.S. citizenship exams. One of the questions on the test was:
Which of the following is a right or freedom from the First Amendment?
▪ speech
▪ religion
▪ assembly
▪ press
▪ petition the government
The answer? All of the above (including the right to take a knee during the national anthem). I recall how my mom beamed with pride at any naturalization ceremony, most of them featuring a pre-recording of the anthem. Here’s one I found online, a 2019 U.S. Citizenship Oath Ceremony in Salt Lake City where participants stand to the anthem as part of the event.
From “Pinay American Dreams” on YouTube. U.S. Citizenship Oath Ceremony, Salt Lake City, 2019.
Maybe unconsciously, my sobs for the Star-Spangled Banner echo my father’s gratitude, particularly for a life in the U.S. which early Chinese Americans regarded as the land of opportunity. Although he was born here in the States, he and his siblings were sent by their father, when they were very young, to live with their mother in China. Meanwhile, their father stayed and worked here to earn money to be sent back to the family in China (no different than modern families who split up while one parent earns money in the U.S. to be sent back to the homeland). When his mother died unexpectedly, my father was barely in his adolescent years. He was moved back here again where he remained his entire life. My dad, Hay Kuhn Lee PFC U.S. Army, and my uncle, Shew Kuhn Lee 2nd Lt. U.S. Army, served during WWII, my uncle earning the Purple Heart. Both were interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Reflecting on that track field in Rocklin, it’s no wonder people stand. I’d wager most aren’t doing it because they have to, but because they want to. And I imagine I wasn’t the only one in that crowd tearing up.
