Quote:Okay, just read the whole thing, and was kinda surprised to see that it actually had, essentially, "In God we Trust" in the 4th verse.  I guess it was around before the Red Scare.

 

Anyway, I don't really see anything in the 2nd stanza that would somehow take that whole "vanquished slaves" message out of the 3rd stanza for those who, like me, see it as fairly obvious.

 

 

 

To the first statemtent, early American history is flooded with references to the Christian religion no matter how much modern people try to deny it.

 

Secondly, the concept in music and poetry is the Phrase, in this case the first phrase of the 3rd stanza says: 

 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

 

Translation:

Where are those loudmouths who said

that we would fight

and they would take our land and homes?

We cleansed our soil with their blood.

 

Second phrase:

 

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

Translation:

There's nowhere their mercenaries and conscripts can hide

from running in fear and the death we have for them

And our flag waves still

over this great land.

 

This is pretty simple stuff, that someone actually tried to turn it into racism is absurd. This is actually some of the best American trash talk you'll ever hear, written after McHenry took all the most powerful navy on Earth at the time could throw at it, and watching the Londoners acknowledge it every year at the Jags game make me giggle a little bit inside.

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