On the internet and social media today, America’s national anthem is continually being rewritten. Civic-minded poets have come up with dozens of new lyrics that address everything from frustrations with technology to high health insurance premiums to the “Star Cranked-Up Batters” of baseball’s steroid era. Most of these amateur lyricists probably don’t realize that by inventing new words to go with the familiar tune, they are doing exactly the same thing that Francis Scott Key did in 1814 when he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In fact, this now famous song wasn’t even Key’s first such attempt.
On Feb. 16, 1804, a squad of U.S. Navy volunteers under the command of Stephen Decatur, Jr., set sail for North Africa in the aptly named Intrepid to retake the frigate U.S.S. Philadelphia, which had been captured by the Barbary States during the Tripolitan War (1801-5), America’s first declared military conflict. The daring raid succeeded and created the young nation’s earliest naval heroes. The next year, Decatur and other officers were honored at a dinner in McLaughlin’s Tavern in Washington, D.C. Along with more than two dozen toasts, the guests were treated to a new song inspired by the occasion and written to fit an already popular tune:
When the Warrior returns from the battle afar
To the Home and the Country he nobly defended,
Oh! warm be the welcome to gladden his ear,
And loud be the joy that his perils are ended!
In the full tide of song,
Let his fame roll along
To the feast-flowing board let us gratefully throng.
Where mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.
The lyric’s author was Francis Scott Key, who had just moved to the capital city in hopes of establishing a legal practice. Key composed “When the Warrior Returns” using the era’s standard technique of fitting new words to an already popular melody—in this case, “The Anacreontic Song.” Also known by its first words “To Anacreon in Heaven,” the melody had already been used as the propulsive musical vehicle for rousing Fourth of July songs, presidential campaign songs and other specifically American lyrics.
“When the Warrior Returns” was an immediate success, reprinted in 15 newspapers from Maine to South Carolina. Nine years later, Key would use the same melody to compose the song that would become America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”