What So Proudly We Hail

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2018

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

So "The Star-Spangled Banner" is kind of a mess: notoriously tough to sing and with some weird stanzas about slavery. This week, we're looking at two of the country's other anthems with their own messy histories to find out what those songs tell us about American ideals.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good, Joe?
0:02.6	It's Gene.
0:03.6	So on Friday, November 16th, Shereen and I will be live at Harlem's World Famous of
0:07.5	Power Theater.
0:08.5	It's part of the work festival from WNYC Studios.
0:10.8	We're going to be joined by the poet Denise Froman, hanging out with Marcus Samuelson,
0:14.8	the head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem.
0:16.3	Plus, we're going to have music from the percussionist and composer Bobby Sinabria.
0:20.3	You can get your tickets at workinadvents.com.
0:22.8	That's workitwyrkintvents.com.
0:30.0	Oh, see, can you see by the dawn's early light?
0:44.5	Fargey, sis.
0:45.5	What is you doing?
0:46.5	What is you doing?
0:47.5	That, of course, y'all is Fergey singing the National Anthem at the MBE also game back
1:04.9	in February.
1:05.9	As to be fair to you, girl Fergey, our National Anthem, the star, Snackle Banner,
1:10.4	is notoriously hard to sing.
1:11.8	It's really hard to do well unless you're like, you know, Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston.
1:16.2	And then there are the lyrics themselves, which are about this weird little battle near
1:20.7	Baltimore during the War of 1812.
1:23.1	And the backstory here is, the British put out a proclamation that would have freed
	...

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