![]() The tune was composed by John Stafford Smith. It was a drinking song whose lyrics had been written in 1780 by Ralph Tomlinson, president of the Anacreontic Society, a popular gentlemen’s club of amateur musicians in London. The melody, however, had a more mundane and definitely less poetic origin. ![]() Key was inspired by the flag flying defiantly above the fort after the unsuccessful attempt by the British to take the fortified city of Baltimore. The lyrics to the anthem of the United States came from a poem called “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, written by a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet called Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy in the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.
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