Jose' Kanusi

Do you get it?? Jose’ Kanusi--HO-SAY KAN U SEE--Oh Say, Can you see?? I know, it took me a while too.

I was a Jose Kanusi singer. Impressed, huh? There were eight of us. Two bass, two tenor, two alto, and two soprano singers were in the group. We sang the Star-Spangled Banner at high school games and other functions. I was a replacement. Another soprano had bad grades and was kicked off. I was lucky. I didn’t have to sing every Thursday and Friday at games. I got on in the spring time. We went to all the middle schools and sang to try to recruit singers for the chorus. Chorus of the ‘80s, when we sang Whitney Houston songs….”How will I know??”….bad, really bad. But, that is not what we are talking about today.

The Star-Spangled Banner. Do you know the song? It is a really hard song and in a high key for a national anthem. It is not easy to sing right. But we still love it. The story of it’s writing and how it came to be add to it’s worth as a national anthem. It is a story of pride in a nation and it’s ideals.

Francis Scott Key wrote the song on the back of an envelope. He had spent days as a “guest” on the British ship the Surprise during the war of 1812. He witnessed a night of full bombardment on Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. He was awestruck the next morning, when he saw the American flag still flying over the fort. He knew the sight of the flag in the dawn’s early light was proof of the land of the free still standing.

We know the first verse, and maybe the second. This is my favorite, I think you will know why.

“Oh! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand.
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for 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!”