[MuttTheHoople]

Basically, the Star Spangled Banner was smacktalk against Britain....the 19th Century version of "WE PIMPSLAPPED YO A$$!"

I love the fact that OUR National Anthem is based on a forgotten battle in a forgotten war, andthat it ends with a question.

[Fiji Hill]

I love the fact that OUR National Anthem is based on a forgotten battle in a forgotten war, and that it ends with a question.

The question is answered in the second verse, when the rising sun reveals that the flag is, indeed, still there:

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner...