This post has been updated.
TORONTO — Americans recently marked the 200th anniversary of their national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The lyrics were penned on the morning of Sept. 14, 1814 by Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and aspiring poet who witnessed the bombing of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry by British troops.
Key’s poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry” was later set to the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” a British song by John Stafford Smith.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” was first performed in October 1814 but wasn’t adopted as the U.S. national anthem until March 3, 1931.
The original song has four stanzas but only the first is used as the anthem.
Over the years, a number of artists have performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” — a challenging song with a range of one octave and a fifth — with mixed results.
Here are 10 memorable performances of the anthem and eight versions the singers probably wish we’d forget.
And in case you want to sing along, here are the lyrics:
O 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 rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
MEMORABLE RENDITIONS
Whitney Houston
Christina Aguilera
Destiny’s Child
Jennifer Hudson
Mariah Carey
Aretha Franklin
Demi Lovato
Cher
Meatloaf
Donna Summer
EPIC FAILS
Carl Lewis
Harper Gruzins
Alexis Normand
Roseanne Barr
Michael Bolton
Steven Tyler
Jesse McCartney
Mesha Brueggergosman
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