The US was at war with Britain at the time, and a 35-year-old lawyer named Francis Scott Key was sent to a British ship outside Baltimore to negotiate a prisoner's release. This is a song originally of relief and of the little man holding his ground, and it has somehow risen from the least auspicious of beginnings to become one of the most important songs ever. When you know its history – or speak to the people who have been most affected by it – you get a different picture. Do you need better insight into the heart of the American soul?" he said.īut perhaps Gladwell himself needs some more insight into the song. The anthem is "a nasty piece of work", according to the Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell, who picked a bizarrely sexy Marvin Gaye rendition of it for Desert Island Discs, the long-running BBC Radio 4 series in which celebrities introduce the pieces of music that mean the most to them. And now, just weeks before its 200th birthday, it has also started attracting the ire of intellectuals. It has been labelled unsingable, campaigned against by the United States's own politicians, and booed across half the Middle East.
The Star-Spangled Banner has taken many knocks in its time.
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