To Anacreon in Heaven - The Anthem
By Gus Kilthau
@Ceerios (4698)
Goodfellow, Texas
September 1, 2016 11:19pm CST
To Anacreon in Heaven - The Anthem
I do not know about you, but I am very much into my years and today is the first time I became aware of the original melody that Francis Scott Key put around his poem about the bombarding of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814 - now the United States' national anthem - was from an old drinking song.
It was this song used by the "Anacreontic" club (pretty much a drinking club) in England back in the day, "To Anacreon in Heaven."
As I listened to the song and its strange words, I thought, "Did the United States feel so bad about having engaged in a war with England once again that it adopted the melody used by an English drinking club as the framework for its own national anthem?"
Mighty strange, mighty, mighty strange.
Now you, too, can listen "To Anacreon in Heaven." Just use the link.
Remember now, I DID forewarn you.
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Image source: Pixabay dot com
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( Like me, I guess that Francis Scott Key knew zip-pop-nothing about music 
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Lyrics: To Anacreon in Heaven, where he sat in full glee, A few sons of harmony sent a petition, That he their inspirer and patron would be; When this answer...
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2 responses
@LadyDuck (461823)
• Switzerland
2 Sep 16
Thank you for the link. This is something I did not know, but most of the National Anthem come from old popular songs. The French anthem "La Marseillaise", was written in 1792 after the declaration of war by France against Austria and the original title was "War Song for the Rhine Army". The Italian anthem was written in 1847 in Genoa, when Italy did not yet exist, because it was unified in 1861.
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@Ceerios (4698)
• Goodfellow, Texas
2 Sep 16
@LadyDuck - Ms Anna - Thank you for explaining about the the French, Italian, and the Austrian anthems. This reminds me of the "macaroni" in the popular song, "Yankee Doodle" widely sung during the French-Indian War times in mockery of the colonists - and then adopted by the colonists and made popular right on through to this day. It seems as though there is a story to tell about almost everything. -Gus-
1 person likes this
-Gus-
@Ceerios (4698)
• Goodfellow, Texas
2 Sep 16
@jaboUK - Ms Janet - I was surprised to learn about the origin of the musical part of the US national anthem. I knew that there was a "contest" to select the anthem from a bunch of entries, but it never was explained to me until now that the melody of the thing was not original to the whole. It is not that I am bothered by the facts of it, but it made me wonder why no one seemed to know the facts about an anthem sung and played by millions of people over the years. 
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