The Star-Spangled Banner is Legit.

As long as we're on a music roll . . .

Tonight I took my sorry tooshy over to the Second City to audition for one of the Writing 6 shows the theater churns out every few months. To close out the hour's work of improvising, acting and cold reading we were asked to sing on the spot a few lines from a song of our choice.

Brushing aside the urge to sing the Christian rock classic that's oddly always stuck in my head, Martin Smith's, "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever," my head was then empty. Somehow I managed to kick into gear and birthed out: "The Star-Spangled Banner." Everybody knows it (except Days of Our Lives soap actress Nadia Bjorlin who failed at singing the correct lyrics at a Boston Red Sox game in Fenway Park last August). Everybody loves it (accept maybe native Americans and probably all Brits). But, surely I could win this crowd over with my red, white and blue pipes.

It happened, and I was on key (pun intended. If you can guess what I'm referring to you win a prize). Then the walk home happened, and I was second guessing my choice, wishing I had sung Beyoncé's "Single Ladies," and then proceeded to belt a few lines of that at the corner of Sedgwick and North Avenue. Francis Scott Key's ditty popped back into focus.

After some serious Google work, I have found that the poem has been chopped to bits at the beginning of every sporting event in these United States. Literally, chopped: we only sing the first stanza of FSK's "Defence of Fort McHenry." Made to believe the soldier wrote the lyrics for the purpose of penning a song, I felt and still feel wronged. To beat, the intense end of the anthem (i.e. the first stanza of the poem) is actually just a question asking if this is indeed the home of the brave? It isn't until the end of Key's poem that we find out what the answer is (i.e. this is the home of the brave.) Unfortunately, the song fails at filling that part in.

If Mr. Key could only hear it now. Nothing more than a trickled down radio jingle. Pained.