Our Country's Song (1953)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] our country's song and our class a part of the school chorus we began preparing for this program a few weeks ago in our classroom by learning the words of the star-spangled banner yes we were learning the words but it was hard the words were difficult [Music] I'm afraid not many understood what the words meant we couldn't ever learn to sing our country's song well if we didn't understand it could we so we decided to find out it was going to take us many days but we all thought it was worthwhile to really understand our country's song Jimmy was going to find out how our country song was written and that meant he had to go to the library and read as much as he could to be able to tell us about it [Music] Carroll was studying the music so she could play it for our class while others of us were working making model and making posters before long our room was filled with our work telling about our country's songs and why we show respect for it we had learned a great deal we learned that the star-spangled banner is an old song written during a battle of course the star-spangled banner is our flag but in those days the flag looked like this it had 15 stripes and 15 stars and in those days there were fewer states in our country than there are now of course since the very beginning when our country had only 13 states we have had songs one of the earliest songs our countrymen loved and sang was [Music] our country had another song too have you ever heard it listen to the melody do you know what it is called hail Columbia the music was written for George Washington our first president it was written as a March for his inauguration and words were written for it soon after our early countrymen loved the song and we still sing it today because it is associated with our first president so even before the star-spangled banner was written our country had songs that were loved and stuff our model of the fort helped us understand the story of how the star-spangled banner was written let's imagine the story it was during the war of 1812 our country was at war with the British fort mchenry stood on the shore of chesapeake bay protecting the american city of baltimore in the harbor lay British warships the British planned to attack the fort and conquer the city the attack was to be made at night on one of the British ships an American was being held as night fell Francis Scott Key began a long and anxious wait the battle was begun who would win with the fourth hall of the city be lost by the light of the exploding bombs and the Rockets he could just make out the stars and stripes of our flag still flying over the fort before morning the fighting ended all was quiet and dark but who had won what flag flew over the fort as the dawn began to break the words of a poem began to form in Francis Scott Key's mind oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming can you see our flag he is asking is it still flying the beauty of the flag and what it stands for were very important to him then whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight all the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming then he thought again of the night and the battle and the Rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there or gave lighting up for us to see that our flag was still fine and then he asked again oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave [Music] or the land of the free and the home of the brave in 1931 the star-spangled banner was made our national anthem by act of Congress and to us today the song stands for our country just as our flag does when we sing it or hear it played we stand to show our respect for our country we know that while our flag has grown and changed our song has come to mean our country to all of us [Music] [Music] [Music]