What should our national anthem be

In recent weeks, suggestions for alternative national anthems have circulated online. Then there are the usual suspects, from the canon of American civic-secular hymns. Rosamond Johnson, has an impeccable pedigree and centers the Black experience in the national story. The Undefeated website reported that the song will be performed before each game during the opening week of the season. Nope, none of these songs will do. At a moment when the United States is in the grip of multiple crises — convulsed by debates over racism and injustice, ravaged by a pandemic, with a crumbling economy and a faltering democracy — the very idea of a national anthem, a hymn to the glory of country, feels like a crude relic, another monument that may warrant tearing down.

It has none of the qualities we associate with national anthems. It speaks in plain musical language, without a trace of bombast, in a tidy arrangement that unfolds over a few basic chords. The lyrics hold no pastoral images of fruited plains or oceans white with foam, no high-minded invocations of liberty or God.

Yet it has long been a kind of national anthem. It is surely among the most widely sung American songs of the past half-century. Jazz pianists have swung it , Imagine Dragons have mauled it.

It is the kind of song that gets dragged out on heady occasions, to impart a sense of significance and solemnity.

It was performed by Mary J. The song has been inescapable during the Black Lives Matter protests, sung by demonstrators across the country, from Los Angeles to Washington, D. They hear a message of friendship and fellow-feeling so straightforward it may at first appear banal. On the original recording , these lines, delivered by Withers in a warm, commanding baritone, land as a simple statement of fact, stripped of sentimentality.

Inspired by the sight of the American flag flying over Fort McHenry the morning after the bombardment, he scribbled the initial verse of his song on the back of a letter. Back in Baltimore, he completed the four verses PDF and copied them onto a sheet of paper, probably making more than one copy. A local printer issued the new song as a broadside.

Shortly afterward, two Baltimore newspapers published it, and by mid-October it had appeared in at least seventeen other papers in cities up and down the East Coast. But without failure, there is no glory. And when the song is beautifully or creatively rendered by a skilled performer, it can be transcendent. Whether a national anthem should be singable by the masses or a stage for the exceptionally talented is the crux of our debate in the video at the top of this post, in which we enlist a vocal coach and a music theory expert to explain what it takes to properly perform this song.

For more Vox videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Some argue the word referred to British forces as a whole. Others, including historian Jason Johnson, say the line is a derogatory reference to black slaves who had joined the British Colonial Marines to fight in the war of But, as historian and scholar Daniel E. We also heard 28 black opera singers recently perform a very powerful, virtual version.