I have followed my friend Chris Hubb’s posts on the comparisons between our National Anthem and Canada’s. I will respond to each of his points.

• Singability. I’ll concede this point to Mr. Hubbs. Ours is indeed “vocal torture”
• Inspiring Language. I love the prose of the whole text of Key’s poem. The lyrics come from “Defence of Fort McHenry”, a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old amateur poetFrancis Scott Key (A Lawyer… which might explain the lofty prose) after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. While the first verse may lack inspiration. The same, I believe, cannot be said of the entire poem. I also submit the final verse of the poem as my example of inspiring language.
• Using words that people actually are familiar with. Personally, I think that words like Spangled. Perilous. Ramparts. Gallantly….etc. lift the prose of our anthem to a lofty state. Anthem should inspire beautiful and inspiring language.
• Actually mentioning the name of the country. Again, I concede this point to Mr. Hubbs.
• Not beginning and ending with a question. The song “ends” with a question because, again, we only sing the first verse of  a poem who’s last verse emphatically answers the question. As Mr. Key sat on the ship on the Chesapeake bay with “bombs bursting in air” the only way he knew about the outcome of the fight was by seeing our flag still waving. So in the night he asked the question, “… does that star-spangled banner yet wave…?

Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
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! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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.
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.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Could we have picked a better anthem? Absolutely. Our anthem suffers from being a large poem that got chopped up. I guess this defense has been more a defense of the poem then the anthem but I just wanted to share my thoughts on the subject with you.