You only get to keep what you can defend.  That’s not even a rule, it’s axiomatic.

It’s good and appropriate that The Star Spangled Banner is based on a British drinking song.

 

We took their song and made it better.  The lyrics were dumb, so we made new lyrics.

King George III was a tyrant, so we took his colonies, and made them better.  Thirty years later, King George was still being a jerk, so we beat him again in the War of 1812.  During that war, Francis Scott Key witnessed the Royal Navy bombarding Fort McHenry, and wrote a poem.  The poem was set to the melody from the drinking song, and America got a national anthem.

Nobody remembers the War of 1812, so Johnny Horton explained it in a catchy song called The Battle of New Orleans.  He won a Grammy Award for it.

King George should have left America out of it.  A half-dozen years after the American Revolution, there was the French Revolution.  Then the Napoleonic Wars started, with France going to war with Britain and everyone else.   In 1812, when American declared war on Britain, France invaded Russia.

To commemorate the wars of 1812, America got The Battle of New Orleans.  To commemorate their defense against the French invasion, Russia got the 1812 Overture.  Johnny Horton does a nice job with a catchy tune, but Tchaikovsky’s work is truly splendid.

For our national anthem, I would prefer The Stars and Stripes Forever.  This version has John Philips Sousa conducting.

Next year, on our 250th anniversary, maybe Trump can get that changed.  But wait!  Rocco Scotti needs lyrics for the national anthem.  There are lyrics.  This version has them.

Here are the lyrics so you can sing along. 

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let tyrants remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

Speaking of tyrants, that was the Covid version by the US Navy Band.