Living outside the US, I haven’t been called upon to sign it in decades, so I wrote down the first verse as best I could remember it:
Oh say can you see through the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
Whose dark stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous night
O’er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming
And the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave truth to the —
That our flag was still there
Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free
And the home of the brave.
There’s a Lady Mondegreen or two in there, and a missing word, so I couldn’t in good conscious answer “all of the first verse.” But if I were in a group of people singing, I’d probably be prompted to get it pretty much right.
Who remembers when TV channels did NOT run all night, and there was a signoff, usually at midnight, with the national anthem? For a while, we lived in Niagara Falls, NY, and I loved the CBC signoff with “O Canada!” Beautiful anthem.
And the rockets’ red glare,
the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there.
In the original text (it was a poem before it was set to the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven”), I believe Key used the vocative “O,” rather than the exclamatory “Oh.”
And yes, I used to stay up past midnight on weekends so I could watch Laurel and Hardy and the station signoff in the wee hours of the morning. I remember doing this even when I was a preschooler.
For the record, this was the salute of the Roman Republic centuries before it came to be associated with modern Fascism or Nazism. (Also for the record, fasces are themselves symbols of republican rule, which is why they’re featured so prominently in the US Congress.)
I know the first verse of The Star Spangled Banner, God Save the Queen, and O Canada.
As much as I despise Trump, I can imagine that with all the information that a president gets in one day, I can imagine stumbling over the lyrics after a long day. I would, however, make damn sure I didn’t do it right after giving a speech about the anthem.
Interesting. I heard Asimov sing all four verses, at the 1970 MITSFS picnic, the last one he attended before he fled to New York. He told us that he memorized them to use when someone accused him of being an unpatriotic pinko (not quite his word, but unpatriotic was). He would then challenge the “true patriot” as to who knew more of the Star Spangled Banner.
I know. Like I said, Lady Mondegreen! (Or I think that at least some of my mistakes are sort of Lady Mondegreens. Maybe they don’t fit the definition, quite.)
Add me to the list of people who were wondering what happened to the “all four verses” option.
I typically start singing alternate versions if I’m singing it more than once in quick succession – say, watching the Olympics. I’ll start by singing along to the first verse, then the second, then the third, etc. Sometimes I’ll sing along with a random verse just for fun. And if I’m feeling particularly patriotic, I’ll sing all four verses in the shower.
I also know all four verses of America the Beautiful. My father and I once sang them together while driving through Yellowstone, while my mother rolled her eyes. It’s one of my favorite memories.
I know only the first verse. I also know the words to G-d Save the Queen, the German national anthem, and the Canadian national anthem (but only in French).
I remember hearing about a film where German or Russian spies were detected when they started to sing the second verse. However, googling it doesn’t bring up any hits.
I know all verses of the British and German anthems (there are three of the latter, but they only use one nowadays), but just the first verses of the French and Canadian ones. I also know “Die Fahne Hoch” and the Brezhnev-era Soviet anthem.