Origins: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty?

Subject: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 08:23 AM

I've just had a conversation with one of my work colleagues who was telling me that the tune to the USA National Anthem was taken (based) from an old English Folk song, possibly even a shanty. He said he saw this on a TV programme presented by Michael Burke.

Has anyone heard this before?

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 08:26 AM

A drinking song "Anacreon in Heaven". http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anacreon.html

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 08:46 AM

Well, blow me. That was quick

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 08:48 AM

fhouldn't it have been The ftar fpangled Banner then? Or would that have put Americans at rifk of having fand kicked in their faces by feven ftone weaklings?

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 10:01 AM

Hear "The Anacreontic Song" here (Click on The Song) at The Star-Spangled Banner at American History Museum.

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 02:41 PM

Anyone want to do the SSB as a shanty? Doesn't look easy!

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 05:11 PM

Maybe it would work to an arrangement of "Blood-Red Roses."

What a challenge!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 05:31 PM

Sometime Mudcatter Dave Swan is a menber of a San Francisco area a cappella group called "Oak, Ash, and Thorn." They did a great recording of "Anacreon in Heaven" - and you can find it for free download here (click). The whole CD is grand - you should buy it, already.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: GUEST,EBarnacle
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 05:32 PM

I find myself using the 2nd and 3rd verses more and more often of late.

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: radriano
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 05:36 PM

Can't be a sea shanty without a chorus.

That's the first rule of sea shanties.

Subject: RE: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 06 - 10:04 PM

I've checked out the lyrics again and though I hate to admit defeat, the job of transforming this song into a sea shanty seems udderly hopeless.

There's no chorus or refrain...

No "Jack" or "Sally" or even a "Willie"...

Not even a bounding billows...

Nothin' to drink...

I suppose one could shout "Umph" or "Joe" or "So help me, Bob" periodically...

There is an old parody which may lead to something:

Oh, say can you see,
Any bedbugs on me?
If you do, pick them off,
And we'll make bedbug broth!

Odd, I'm having trouble posting this!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 11:28 PM

Thought this might be of interest to some:

A first edition of the lyrics and music of "The Star Spangled Banner," one of the 11 known copies, was auctioned at Christie's in New York on Dec. 3 for $506,500. It is said that Francis Scott Key wrote the first verse in 1814 while watching British ships fire on Baltimore's Fort McHenry. The final version with 32 lines was completed when he got back to Baltimore. The words were set to the music of a well-known drinking song, "The Anacreontic Song." A Baltimore music publisher rushed to put the words and music together and there are many typos in the first edition. The publisher even forgot to include the name of the poem's author. The song did not become our official national anthem until 1931.

Subject: RE: Origins: Star Spangled Banner - Folk/Sea Shanty?
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 07:32 PM

Charley Noble: My mother had a different recipe:

    ... If you'll please pick a few,
    I will fry them for you.

There was also the jazzed-up

    O say, can you -- imagine, mother?
    Your boy is in the guardhouse now.