Audience, Garrison Keillor.
Star Spangled Banner ( Garrison Keillor , Audience )
[undocumented]
I did a solo show in Raleigh and when I walked out onstage, into a wall of applause, I decided to do something useful with all that good feeling, and I hummed a note, which the audience hummed, and I sang, “O say, can you see” — and they were all right there on top of it, and the crowd gave it their all, and I held my arms up for “And the rockets’ red glare” and they sang forte bravissimo all the way to the end and they held the note on “free” and sang “home of the brave” so sweetly, and gave themselves a round of applause. The song doesn’t get sung as often as it should be. It’s a great song. Francis Scott Key, watching the British bombardment of Baltimore in 1814, started out to write a lament for his lost love Antonia: The Banner that we watched in Air So Proudly as it Gleamed But as I saw the Rocket Glare It was of You I Dreamed And as I waited for the Dawn To see if it still flew Or if ---- in Tatters ---- it was Gone ---- As happened, Love, with You. But then he did the right thing and put aside his own miseries and wrote for the Greater Cause and created a song that has real power to bring people together, including old lefties and Unitarians and ironic skeptics, and fill them with love of country.