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Oh say can you Francis Scott Key...

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Francis Scott Key here.

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Even if you don’t know me by name, you already know my work.

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Speak of the devil…

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That little ditty is mine. It’s my best known song.

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Far and away more popular than the stuff I wrote during my “blue period.”

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But I wasn’t always such a music industry megastar.

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The “Madonna” of my time. I started out as a lawyer.

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I know, I know… if you had a nickel for every lawyer who turned songwriter.

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Anyway, it fell on my shoulders to secure the release of a civilian prisoner who had

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been taken aboard a British ship.

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And then it was just a matter of “right place, right time.”

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As chance would have it, I wound up with a front row seat

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to the Battle of Baltimore at Fort McHenry.

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There wasn’t much of a call for lawyers out there on the battlefield…

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…so I was detained on the ship while the British carried out their plans to take the fort by sea.

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However, they were a little surprised when they realized the fort wasn’t made out of couch cushions.

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So while I was chillin’ on the ship...

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…the British bombarded the fort through the night.

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Their ships tried to station themselves just outside the range of the fort’s guns…

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… so they just kept firing on the fort without being too worried about enemy fire.

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But… it was pretty dark out there.

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This was pre-floodlights, keep in mind.

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Eventually, the ships came into range of the fort’s guns, and… kablooey!

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The British desperately wanted to get their paws on the fort…

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…as it was a crucial location for US supply lines…

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…but they were outmatched.

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By the dawn’s early light… sound familiar?...

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…I could see that the American flag was waving above the fort.

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It was a little battered and riddled with holes from artillery shells…

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…but at least it was still there.

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The Americans had prevailed. Luckily, I had some paper handy…

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…and I borrowed a pen from some British bloke, who was too depressed to care why I needed it.

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I was totally inspired by what I had seen…

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… and when a poet is inspired, he writes.

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Yeah, okay, I was still a lawyer, but… a very poetic one.

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I started writing our eventual national anthem then and there, on the deck of the British ship.

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Ah, well… what they don’t know, right? Now that the battle had been won…

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…the men under my watch were released at the Baltimore harbor.

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I took a room at a local hotel…

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… might have been a Holiday Inn Express, I don’t recall…

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… and pulled an all-nighter, writing my famous four-verse masterpiece!

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Even if most people only know the first one…

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Fortunately, I was able to get the poem into the hands of the right people…

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…and “The Battle of Fort McHenry” became our national anthem!

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Although they ultimately came up with another title for it – “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

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Whatever. I still like mine better. But hey… whatever sells on iTunes, right?

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