What’s unusual about the music to the American national anthem?
In 1814, after a night in a pub, Francis Scott Key was taken prisoner during the war between Canada and the United States. When he saw the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry he was inspired to write his famous lyrics with one particular barroom song, “To Anacreon In Heaven,” still in his mind. And so “The Star Spangled Banner” was written to the tune of a traditional old English drinking song. Who was Matilda in the song “Waltzing Matilda”? In the Australian song “Waltzing Matilda,” a billabong is a pool of stagnant water. A swagman was someone who carried around everything he owned in a knapsack. Waltzing meant hiking, and Matilda wasn’t a woman but rather an Australian word for a knapsack. So Waltzing Matilda means: walking with my knapsack. How did the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” become so famous? “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was written in 1830 by Sarah Hale, the editor of Godey’s Ladies Magazine. She was inspired after watching young Mary Tyler’s pet lamb follow the girl t
