The Greek Connection to the US National Anthem

By Tony Cross

It’s fairly well known that the words to the US National Anthem were written by a 33-year old lawyer named Francis Scott Key, as he watched the British Royal Navy bombarding Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbour on the 13th and 14th September 1814.

The words that he wrote convey perfectly the sense of pride he felt as he saw the huge US flag still flying over the fort in “the dawn’s early light”.

Oh! Say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! Say, does the Star-Spangled Banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

He wrote the words as a song, and with a very specific tune in mind. Known as “Anacreon in Heaven,” the tune was well-known in America at the time and was often used for patriotic songs. Francis Scott Key himself had earlier written another patriotic song, called “The Warrior Returns,” to the same tune.

What Francis Scott Key didn’t know was that the tune had been written 36 years earlier—and in Britain.

Tune of US National Anthem created in honor of Greek poet Anacreon

In 1766, a gentlemen’s club was formed in London with the aim of creating a society dedicated to conviviality, wit, and good wine. Notable members included Samuel Johnson, the poet and playwright; Sir Joshua Reynolds, the renowned portrait painter; and Henry Purcell, the composer. Franz Joseph Hayden, the composer, was a frequent guest.

They called their club The Anacreontic Society, after the Ancient Greek lyric poet who was noted for his drinking songs and erotic poems.

Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon’s poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals, and the observations of everyday people and life.

A long-term president of the society, Ralph Tomlinson, wrote the words to what he intended to be an anthem for the society; he called it “To Anacreon In Heaven.”

To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full Glee,
A few Sons of Harmony sent a Petition,
That he their Inspirer and Patron would be;
When this answer arriv’d from the Jolly Old Grecian
“Voice, Fiddle, and Flute,
“no longer be mute,
“I’ll lend you my Name and inspire you to boot,
“And, besides I’ll instruct you, like me, to intwine
“The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s Vine.”

On his death in 1778, the society decided to commission suitable music to accompany Tomlinson’s words so that it could be sung as the anthem that Tomlinson had intended.

The organist and composer John Stafford Smith was given the job of creating music for Tomlinson’s words. Unfortunately, the words that he had written were quite torturous and the music that Stafford Smith created meant that the anthem was particularly difficult to sing. It was often used as a test of sobriety in the society; if you could sing the first verse and stay in tune and in time, then you clearly weren’t drunk enough!

The sobriety test aspect of the song soon escaped from the society into the pubs and taverns in England as a drinking song. It was common to make up different words to the tune, and these were often bawdy, as might be expected in a drinking house.

The tune became a firm favorite in America

When the disaffected and the persecuted left Britain for a better life in the United States, they took their drinking songs with them, and the tune became a firm favorite in America, where it was known as “Anacreon in Heaven.” What happened to the preceding “To” isn’t known.

Whilst the British had made up bawdy words to the tune, Americans generally made up patriotic words. In quite a short time, the British origins of the tune were lost and it became accepted as American.

When Francis Scott Key sent his patriotic song to be published, he gave it the title of “The Defence Of Fort McHenry” and added that it was to the tune “Anacreon in Heaven.”

The music and words were later reprinted by the Carr’s Music Store in Baltimore under the title The Star-Spangled Banner—and the name stuck. The sheet music also indicated that the tune was “Anacreon in Heaven” so that those who couldn’t read music were still able to sing it.

Soon the song was everywhere; all who heard it felt the same sense of pride in the stout defiance of the little fort against the might of the greatest navy on the planet.

Although the US Navy began using The Star-Spangled Banner at all flag-raising ceremonies in 1898, it wasn’t until March 3, 1931 that President Herbert Hoover signed the bill that made The Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem of the United States of America.

Although every American knows how to sing their anthem, it’s less well known that the tune is British and even less well known that it was written to honor a Greek.

Related: The Greek National Anthem and its Meaning