Did Francis Scott Key ever write anything of note besides the “Star Spangled Banner?”
Don’t think them charts were around back then.
Mexican Radio!
Wall of Voodoo.
Smoke From A Distant Fire by Sanford Townsend Band.
Well, he never wrote anything of note because he only wrote lyrics...
But he did write a number of hymns, of which the best known is probably Before You, Lord, We Bow
Francis Scott Key was not a composer. He was a lawyer and amateur poet.
The tune used for his poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" describing the attack on Fort McHenry was a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith. It was popular in the States at the time also.
I don't know who it was who put the two together, though.
[Did Francis Scott Key ever write anything of note besides the “Star Spangled Banner?”]
He actually wrote two lyrics to the same melody.
At dawn, Key was able to see an American flag still waving. Back in Baltimore and inspired, Key wrote a poem about his experience, “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, which was soon published in William Pechin’s American and Commercial Daily Advertiser on September 21, 1814. He took it to Thomas Carr, a music publisher, who adapted it to the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith’s “To Anacreon in Heaven”, a popular tune Key had already used as a setting for his 1805 song “When the Warrior Returns”, celebrating U.S. heroes of the First Barbary War. (Key used the “star-spangled” flag imagery in the earlier song.) It has become better known as “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key
From Francis Scott Key in 1817:
Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise thee
For the bliss thy love bestows,
For the pard’ning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows.
Help, O God, my weak endeavor,
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.
Tune: Ripley. Arranged by Lowell Mason, 1839.