Welcome to the Common Time Podcast, a show designed to give music educators practical, inspiring ideas for you and your program. Each week we sit down with world class educators, composers, and conductors to talk about teaching, leadership and building programs that thrive without burning yourself out. So whether you're a band, orchestra, or choir director, our goal is simple to help you grow and stay inspired and remember why you fell in love with teaching music in the first place. This is season 4, and we're diving even deeper. More real conversations, more actionable takeaways, and more voices shaping the future of music education. Let's get into the episode. Our guest today is Mark Clague. Welcome, Mark.
Great to see you, David. John, it's great to be here on Common Time.
Yes, we're so excited that you're on.
Mark is the executive director of the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan. He's a musicologist and the world's leading authority on the Star Spangled Banner. So we're really excited to learn from you today. John, get it started.
Thanks so much, David. Hi, Mark. Always good to see you my friend.
You too, John. I'm glad that you're willing to hang out with a musicologist. That's a good sign.
I love it, you know, it's good for all of us. It is in our school. And actually speaking of that, this is my first question for you, for our listeners who may not be familiar with your work. Are you able to describe what a musicologist actually does and also what actually brought you into the field of musicology?
That's a great question. I mean, in some ways, you know, like a musicologist is a fancy word for music historian. So like you're an art historian or music historian or historian of, you know, American life. That's what a musicologist does. So the ology is like the study of music, but I think, you know, what really drives folks who are musicologists is a love of music. So it's actually not all that different from someone who's a performer. And I think what our goal is, certainly what my goal is, is to try to help myself, but help other people as well, have the deepest, most powerful relationship to music as possible, right? To understand like the story behind the music, that gives us other points of connection to what the music means and how it affects our lives. I mean, I think all of us who have devoted our lives to music, like we do it because it's really meaningful to us. And so part of what a musicologist does is usually works through speaking, giving lectures, writing books or articles, but is basically trying to explain why is this art so powerful for human beings and really get into that story. So that's in a nutshell what a musicologist does.
Absolutely. I love that — helping all of us understand better what it is we're trying to do. And you're the first musicologist we've had on, so I'm just excited to get to explore that. So yeah, I know that you and your research, you're known for the Star Spangled Banner and having dug into that and written about it. So can you give us something of like, what drew you into studying that, particularly the anthem? And then what surprised you the most along the way as you started digging into this thing that we sing all the time at every event we have?
Yeah, I think, I mean, part of what fascinates me about the anthem is that I am American. I grew up in the United States. I was actually nine years old in 1976 when we celebrated the bicentennial of the country, so the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, we're now at 250, so I'm glad I'm still here for this one. But I think that's part of my fascination — I fell hook, line and sinker for all the sort of patriotic pomp and fanfare and the sort of ideals of the country about the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. And so the Star Spangled Banner is something that's been a part of my life, you know, for as long as I can remember. The specific thing that got me into the history side of it was Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. And largely because I taught for about 20 years a course at the University of Michigan, which was a history of American music. And one of the fundamental questions is like, well, what is American music, exactly? And in order to get students to start grappling with that issue, I thought, well, we'll start with a piece that's obviously American music. The national anthem's got to be American. And so let's dig into that. And a lot of history is dealing with the complexity of the past. And so Jimi Hendrix is interesting because, you know, it's often thought of as this kind of big protest song. But Hendrix himself had been a member of the 101st Airborne. He had friends who were serving in Vietnam. And so it's not just an anti-war protest. It's also, I think, an act of patriotism to say basically, I love this country, I admire my friends who are fighting for this country, but also I hope that this country can be different in some way. And all of those messages are in Hendrix's anthem. It's not just a sonic burning of the flag, for instance. It's not just a protest. It's not just patriotic. It's both of those things at the same time. And so getting into that complexity was what was really interesting about that. And at that time I also thought it would make me cool because I was playing rock and roll for music students who are mainly classical, right? So that never worked. But the thing that it led to is all sorts of questions, like, well, where did this song come from and who wrote it and when and why? And like, is Hendrix's version really different than the original? Or why does it sound different than the way I played it in high school band, for example, or heard it at the football stadium? And so digging into those questions led me to get a bunch of students together. And we actually got the original sheet music of the Star Spangled Banner, and we sang it off that. And then that just started this kind of deep dive into the rabbit hole of history of like all these weird things about the anthem. And it turns out that there's a big story there.
Yeah, I'm ready to hear a lot more about this story. But John, go ahead.
Yeah, so I'm just going to ask it, Mark — I think that many people think they know the story of the anthem. And I think we as Americans sometimes arrogantly might assume that we know the story. However, the real story, I would assume, is a lot more complex. So what are the common misconceptions that people have about the anthem? And are you able to just kind of talk us through the story and set the record straight on the Common Time Podcast with Mark Clague about the anthem?
That is a great question. And that mythology around, like a lot of things American — that mythology is both sort of what inspires us, but also what can sort of lead us astray. And so indeed, yeah, the story is a little bit more interesting. And part of what we think we know about the anthem, we don't actually know about the anthem. And that's actually pretty typical of things where there's part of our lives that are just ubiquitous, that are there all the time — we don't ask those basic questions like what happened. Part of what's tricky about the Star Spangled Banner is it partially tells its own story. Like the lyrics are a story. They tell you there was this battle and there were these bombs bursting in air and then there was this anxiety, like, was the flag still there? Like who won, who lost? And so it has like the kernels of its own story in it. And then often I think we sort of just riff on that and we think we know the whole thing when actually we only have this little window into it. So like common misconceptions about the basic story of the anthem — I mean, you often hear people say, well, Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyric, was a prisoner on a British ship during the battle. And that's not true. He was on an American ship, a truce ship. So often you'll see a picture of like Key seeing the flag and it's like 50 feet away from him and he's there next to a big cannon. And the truth is he had been tasked by the president of the United States to rendezvous with the British fleet to negotiate the release of a friend of his, William Beanes, who had been captured at the Battle of Washington. And basically when he was on the ship, he overheard some of the battle plans. And they were like, you can't leave quite yet. You've got to stick here till we finish off the Americans at Baltimore. Don't worry, it won't take us long. We're the British. We have a better military than you do. And they had every reason to be confident because they had just burned all the capital buildings in Washington, DC to the ground four weeks earlier. So American military at this time was very weak, very disorganized. And the British were the world superpower at the time. They had guns that shot farther than our guns. And so they literally could park the British fleet 3 miles away from Fort McHenry and just bomb away. And the fort's guns only shot like 2 miles, so they were basically defenseless. But what happened is that the defenders of Fort McHenry — the soldiers who were stationed at the fort, which included professional army and Navy folks, but also volunteer militia folks — stayed at their posts even though they couldn't fight back. And they were just sitting ducks. But they defended the fort, they stayed there and they outlasted the British. The British, because they were at the edge of their range, didn't have very good aim on those weapons. A big thunderstorm also hurt the aim and the effectiveness of the bombs. And so they prevented the British fleet from entering Baltimore Harbor, which would have allowed them to bomb the defensive lines defending the city of Baltimore from behind, which would allow the British marines who were also attacking simultaneously to overwhelm the city and take it probably in a matter of hours. So really, Fort McHenry saved the nation. And so Francis Scott Key writes this song to celebrate the heroism of the defenders of Fort McHenry. So one of the other little fun things about the Star Spangled Banner is that its original title is not the Star Spangled Banner. It's the Defense of Fort McHenry, because it was a song about the defense of Fort McHenry. Fort McHenry is the fort that guards the way to the harbor. Still there today — you can go visit it, it's pretty cool. I've given a talk there about the Star Spangled Banner, which was super fun. But there are lots of other myths. Like, he wrote it on the back of an envelope — that is definitely not true because envelopes hadn't been invented yet. Paper was really expensive and precious, and so when you wrote a letter, you wrote the letter part on one side and then you folded it up and put a wax seal on it. You did not waste an entire piece of paper just to cover up one other piece of paper. So they really didn't use envelopes. He might have used a piece of scrap paper to jot down some notes, I have no idea. But he was on a diplomatic US ship, so they had plenty of paper if they needed it, because they had paper to write out treaties or agreements with the British. And after the battle, in fact, he was stuck on that ship for three days while John Skinner, who was the US agent of prisoners and was also with them, was liaising with the British. Warfare in 1814 was super slow. The British fleet was safe from the American guns. So after the battle, they basically decided those Baltimore folks are way too dug in, we can't get past the fort, this is too high a price to keep fighting, so we're just going to leave this battle. But they took three days to get out. They packed up the ships, they catalogued how many munitions they had used, they took inventory of what they had left, and who got injured and what casualties they had, because that ground attack had several people killed, including Robert Ross, who was the general who led the marines. And that was probably actually what turned the battle — he was killed by an American sniper. And the blow of having the commander of the British marines killed is probably what discouraged them and got them to leave, because they're like, this is just too high a price. This was not like Washington, DC, which we overran in a matter of an hour. So yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff about the battle and about the story behind the thing. But one of them, I think, is that Key very carefully crafted the lyrics. So probably the biggest myth I try to fight against is that Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that somebody else matched to a particular melody. That was not what happened. Francis Scott Key wrote a song by composing a set of words as a lyric to fit a melody he already knew and had in his mind as he wrote it.
Mark, I'm sorry to interrupt. Is it a drinking song? Because that was going to be my next question. I was told it was a popular drinking song. Is that true?
Well, no — we're all wrong. Well, no, yes. So it's a club song, not a pub song. The tune comes from a British men's musicians club that was formed in the 1760s in London. And it's sort of the Young Guns club. There were older music clubs, but this is the new one. And it's called the Anacreontic Society. It's named after Anacreon, who is a Greek lyric poet. And they did definitely drink — I mean, in the 1760s in London, they had no water treatment. So the only way to safely drink something was to ferment it or to boil it. So you could have coffee, tea, or beer basically, or spirits. And at Anacreontic meetings, it was considered impolite to drink coffee or tea. So they drank everything else. So they definitely had a good time. It was a men's club. Women came to the concerts beforehand, but you've got to imagine a club that has like 5 or 6 hour meetings. The first two hours of the meeting is a symphony concert with chamber music orchestra. Like, when Haydn came to London and gave the premiere of the London Symphonies, he did it at an Anacreontic Society club meeting. And then they have dinner together. And then basically they sang part songs throughout the evening as a way of hanging out and connecting and developing camaraderie. So it's definitely got a boisterous, celebratory notion, but it's a club anthem as opposed to a drinking song that you would get in the bar or the pub, or public house, as you would say in London. Now, the key to understand, however, is that the Anacreontic song is not just one set of words — the melody becomes super popular in the general culture and people start writing alternate lyrics to it pretty much from the outset. So this is the big difference between what was happening in the 18th and 19th century and the way we think about song today. Today we think about song as like Taylor Swift records a song. We have her version — maybe we get the red version later. But anyway, we get one version by one artist that's recorded and everybody knows that one. And maybe someone else does a cover version, but we know what the original was, right? So Big Mama Thornton sings Hound Dog, maybe Elvis covers it, right? But it's a specific recording of a specific person who probably has a specific relationship with the song. In the 19th and 18th century, no recording yet — it hadn't been invented yet. 1877, Thomas Edison. So we're 100 years before that. If you want music in your life, you have to make it yourself. So that's part of why there are so many bands — people are making their own music. They're not listening to records. There's no radio, no YouTube, no Spotify, right? So it's very common to make music. And what happens with this tune is that it becomes a vehicle for other ideas because people put new lyrics to this tune. And it does get used for drinking songs. It gets used for party tunes. I have found literally 600 different lyrics to the tune we know as the Star Spangled Banner. Some of them are interesting advertisements for, like, an ice rink or a candy company. And some are like a song that a husband wrote for his wife on their anniversary. But most of them are American political songs. The very first ones are for the 4th of July, which is the first American holiday. And then there are campaign songs for Thomas Jefferson. The thing that probably made it the most famous is from 1798 — it's a song for John Adams, the 2nd president of the United States. So anyway, if you line up all these 600 lyrics from number 1, which in the United States is from 1790, to the most recent, which was actually written in 2024 — and there may be more that I just haven't found yet — Francis Scott Key's lyric for the Star Spangled Banner is number 136. So it doesn't start it off. It actually joins a conversation in song lyric about the nation and the kind of country we want to live in. So that's probably the most important thing I sort of figured out is that the Star Spangled Banner is actually part of this really dynamic changing culture. It's really about a conversation about the nation. And it's Francis Scott Key's sort of contribution to that. And it was not meant to be the one and done anthem. It was actually meant to inspire commentary and reaction and sort of be part of this cultural system, which in a way it was called the broadside ballad tradition if you want to get technical. But it's basically the way you put heart and soul into the public debate, right? Because music was the way you brought emotion into the debate. Newspapers were how you brought the ideas in, but Broadside Ballads song was how you brought heart into public debate.
Yeah. So would you say that's what created somewhat of the evolution from it being a popular tune to now being a national symbol — just that sort of, you mentioned numerous sort of events that preceded this, it being our national anthem, that it was used for these other various purposes. How many, like how long did that take? Like what was sort of the — from this is a song we kind of all know to now it's the national anthem. Is that trackable?
It is trackable and there's 2 answers to that. One is like the official legal answer and the other is the sort of real cultural answer. So the official legal answer is that it took 117 years, because it's 1931 when Herbert Hoover, who is the president, signs a bill passed by Congress that names the Star Spangled Banner the national anthem of the United States. And critical for musicians is that it doesn't actually tell you what the music sounds like. It actually doesn't even tell you the words. It just says the song known as is the National — that's complete, that's the whole bill. It's like 19 words long. Then the cultural answer is the more interesting answer. Not surprisingly, Congress, I would argue, was a little slow to the game and was basically acknowledging something that had been true since at least 1861. And so why do I say 1861? So July 4th, 1861 was the day which by law stars should have been removed from the flag because the Confederate states seceded from the Union. They had said we're leaving, we don't want to deal with this, you know, anti-slavery president Mr. Lincoln, we're gone from our own country. And Lincoln and the federal government said no, you can't break the compact. It doesn't work like that. And that started the Civil War. So on July 4th, 1861, the stars stayed on the flag. So that made the flag the symbol of Union. And the song, which uses the flag because that's what Francis sees and tells them that America had been saved in 1814, the song is the sonic symbol of union, right? And so the sacrifice that Americans made to preserve the Union, which literally led to the greatest number of military dead in the history of the country for any single war on both sides — all those people who died make the flag and the song sacred. So what had been a party tune in 1814, which was performed in 6/4, upbeat, fast — it's like, hey, we beat the British, let's have a celebration — becomes slower because it becomes a sacred hymn to the nation. So it sounds, and it still does today, more like a church hymn. And so since I know this is a music podcast and people know what common time is, let's talk about the fact that the Star Spangled Banner is a triple time song that often gets performed in 4/4, which for anybody who knows music, that's like adding an extra foot to your body, right? You turn a waltz into a march — it's like, whoa, that's a big character change. But for the Star Spangled Banner, when Whitney Houston sings it in 1991 at the Super Bowl, she adds that extra beat and everybody says that's how that song is supposed to sound. Well, for a musician, you know, that is the least traditional version possible because you've changed the meter. But it sounds more like a church hymn than the original because a church hymn is true common time, right? So it actually rings truer to us today when the song is sacred and represents all of this sacrifice — between protesters and military soldiers who sacrificed, and all the things everybody has done to save and help each other to forge community in this country, public service for the government, whatever it is — all of that sacrifice adds up into this commitment that is now sacred and is represented by this tune. So much so that the tune sounds more traditional in this very untraditional 4/4 slow version, even though the original was in 6/4 and was fast.
Yeah, it's so interesting. I think John's going to take us into some performance sort of tradition questions. But I — it's fascinating to me because I always wait for the Super Bowl fallout online. All right, well, he did it in four, so he's clearly terrible. Like, this year's I thought was really beautifully done. It was really good. I enjoyed it. It wasn't overly, you know, sometimes people just over embellish and do some crap. I thought he just sang it beautifully. And yes, it was in 4/4, but it didn't feel uncomfortable, right? It felt like it really worked that way. And it's so interesting because your answer completely validates the idea of how it's evolved, right? Even though that wasn't where it started. Well, if we go back to where it started, we're doing it in 6/4 now fast. So I mean, it's such an interesting thing because I just wait for all the people that just lose their minds online about adding an extra beat. And I just find this fascinating that the history has shown now — well, actually, yeah, the version that we consider most accurate was not, if we're looking historically. You know, maybe if there's time at the end, Mark and I — we've been talking about this over the years because we actually did a halftime show about this with Mark conducting the band and he was narrating it. And as a part of the show, we have snippets of the different versions over the years, how it started and how it changed. And I think that's just incredible. But we were talking about — Mark, I think I asked you one time, how do you feel about people putting their own interpretation into it? And I do want to hear about that. Maybe we have a couple minutes. Can you just talk about that real quick? Because I do think it's fascinating because you talked about Hendrix and Stravinsky has one and like all the pop singers that do all these crazy things. I think personally, Whitney's version in my mind is like one of the pinnacle ones ever in the entire canon, you know. But so how do you feel about people kind of messing with it? And for anybody listening, that's in quotes. How do you feel about that?
That's a really great question. And in some ways it's a very personal response. When I give talks, often someone will ask me a question like, what do you think about this horrible tradition of messing with the anthem and how pop singers totally screwed up and it's all about them. I think the key is sincerity. So if you can do a rendition, no matter what you do, that sounds to people like it's sincere and heartfelt and that it really connects to this vision of the country and the sort of sense of patriotism being the unifying connection that takes this huge, crazy 350 million people nation and brings us together, then I think people will hear it as traditional almost no matter what you do. Because like Whitney Houston, as I say, it's a pretty weird version traditionally because she puts an extra beat in every measure. And the gospel stylings are sort of subtle, but they're there. So I think pop singers can do a lot as long as it comes off as sincere. If it comes off as sort of self-promotional or commercialized or they're doing something to get clicks on social media rather than to give a message, then I think it comes off as false. That said, for me, the weird versions are the fun ones — they're the ones where someone is adding some extra meaning to it, like Hendrix, right? He puts in Taps, the bugle call, into it, and does word painting where he uses the whammy bar when it says the flag was still there. And that's the sound of the flag literally being depicted as waving, right? So for me, those versions are where the meaning is. Or Jon Batiste is another one who I really love — his versions often create a kind of mash-up of the Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing, the so-called Black national anthem. And that I think adds a whole other layer of meaning to it. So if you're bringing something to it that basically says this song is bigger than just the ubiquitous cliche that you may unthinkingly be repeating all the time — what I want most of all is people to think about it, to think about their relationship to it, what could this mean, and engage with it and make it their own too. So I guess that's my summary: for me as a historian, the weird versions are the fun ones, the most interesting ones. But if it's sincere, I think you can do a lot with the song.
It's — Johnny, go ahead. No, please. I was just thinking like we've kind of talked about the musical weight — you're talking about if it's sincere, if it has those qualities — but there's other weight that it covers: political, cultural. Those kinds of things are now very present in our world. I'm curious how you think about that, given what you know about the piece, and how you communicate that with students and audiences. Because it's just sort of a complex — we've had players that take a knee in protest, and it does that put us together, does it tie us up. It's just such an interesting place because that song has become so important to all of us. But how do you deal with that?
Well, and I'm sure like a lot of people on this podcast and you guys as musicians have run into this question too, where maybe people in your band have felt uncomfortable with the song or people in the audience have reacted in different ways to the song. For me, I actually have a pretty wide latitude of how I think people can relate to it. And I think the controversies that come up about the anthem are typically less about the song and typically more about how the song is resonating with the nation at that moment, right? So I see the song as a kind of barometer of liberty, or barometer of freedom. When the nation is living up to its ideals for the people experiencing this ritual, the song is sort of always consonant or harmonious, if you will. It resonates in a way that people are like, OK, yeah, I can go — let's go for it, this is true, we're living the dream. When it's not — when people feel like they're not welcome under this big umbrella we call American democracy, when people are being kicked out or neglected or oppressed — when that is the feeling, regardless of what it could be, I mean today it's sort of about immigration, for Kaepernick it was about police violence — when it rings false, it's then dissonant. The song and the country are clashing. And that clash is what makes people uncomfortable. You can sort of ignore it — if everybody just says, well, I'm just not going to notice this dissonance and everybody's just going to pretend it's all situation normal, hand over hearts, we'll just sing it. But when someone does something different to highlight that dissonance, then that tends to create a stir, right? It gets into publicity, it makes people upset — like Kaepernick kneeling. Kneeling itself is not necessarily an act of disrespect, right? That was not how Kaepernick intended it. In some ways I think like patriotism and protest have to be something that actually work together. For me, protest itself could be interpreted as an act of love for the nation. Like you care so much about this country that you're going to inconvenience yourself and make a stand to try to make this country better in whatever way you think that's needed. To me, that's patriotic. That's an expression of hope. That's an expression of belief in the nation. It's not an act of hate to say you think this country can be better. Now, we may not agree exactly how it should be better, right? And that's what democracy is about — giving voice to these different ideas and then coming to a joint agreement about how we're going to move forward. And right now, I think the thing that bothers me most about how the Star Spangled Banner gets used now is it often gets used as a kind of cudgel, a partisan weapon to beat up the other tribe who you sort of say is not the real Americans — like one group is the real ones and the other group is the false ones. And that's been happening all throughout American history, that's nothing new. But for me, that's an abuse of the anthem. That's an abuse of patriotism. Because what the anthem I think is supposed to do is remind us all that the country is bigger than any one person or any one party. That in order for the democracy to live, for the nation to thrive, we all have to love the country more than we love our team. And so in a way, doing the anthem before a sporting event is sort of perfect, because you have two teams that are gonna — they might hate each other, they're gonna try to do everything to beat each other up in the next 60 minutes or two hours — but at the end, they're all on the same larger team. One's gonna win, one's gonna lose. But the idea was we played the game, we came to a result, and we're going to play it again next year.
Is that a case in point — when I conduct the anthem at Ohio State Stadium —
That's yeah, that sounds like enemy territory. They probably — I walk to the center of the field, I conduct the anthem, there's mad applause for the anthem. And then immediately as I'm walking off the field, the boos start.
Yeah, right, you know. But they cheer for the anthem — everybody in the stadium cheers for the anthem — and then from there on it's energetic. But that one always makes me laugh every time because it is so loud. I would get a text from my mom. She was like, oh honey, are you OK? After the stadium booed you, she could hear it on TV, you know. But it is pretty funny though, because — which, you know, all of this — it's so interesting to think about, because it's so highly emotional and personalized and weaponized, as you said, which is unfortunate. But my question is, how do you deal with that, right? So for the band and orchestra and choir conductors who play this regularly — do you have any insights from your research that could help them approach it with more intention and depth rather than just emotion or other things that are currently happening at the moment?
Yeah, wow, that's great. Well, one thing that I can tell you for sure — if we just compare how Francis Scott Key would have experienced the song in 1814 and how Whitney Houston sings it — there is no single traditional version of the anthem. So if anybody thinks there's only one way to do it, you're wrong. There are many ways. And I think one of the things I think about in that regard, John, is that the flag and the song are sort of both about the same thing. They're in this kind of symbiotic partnership, but they're also very different. Because the flag you can look at, you can stick on the wall in the classroom, you can put it up in the stadium on the flagpole. The song doesn't exist until you play it. So the song has to exist in real time — it has to be brought into our contemporary moment through the act of performance. So song is just sort of fundamentally different than a visual symbol like a flag, which is an object. So I think of the song not as a noun, but as a verb. It's something we do. And by implication, patriotism is also something you do — it's not something you just get because you happen to be born in a certain place. It's something you earn by service. So you've got to live up to that story of sacrifices that built this country through patriotism. So when you're talking to the people in your band or whoever about performing the song, I think you can invite them to perform it not looking backwards, but looking forwards — saying, what kind of country do you want to live in? What kind of message can we give now that brings this song to life for our audience in a way that's going to inspire us to all be better than we are, or to overcome our partisanship, or to just be friendly with your neighbors — whatever that is. I think there's an opportunity. And for that reason, I think there are two things about the text in particular that are worth emphasizing. When I talk to students, for example, one thing I ask them is what for you is the most important word in that first verse of the Star Spangled Banner that we sing? And usually I'll get several different answers. One often is like free — the big high note in the last stanza, the land of the free. And sometimes it's brave. Sometimes it's home. And I say, well, let me suggest something to you. What I think is the most important word of the Star Spangled Banner is the at the very beginning. Oh, say, can you see? So YOUU, what is your relationship to this song? So one of the things the song does is it puts you into the story like you're at the battle. You're wondering, can I see this flag? Is, is, is the country still, does it still exist or has it been defeated by the British? Has it have we lost our independence? Right. This is this critical question for keys. Like that's what that flag means. It means we're here or we're not. But you are in the story. You're in the battle. Like you're there. And because the lyric like recruits you to be part of the story, it also recruits you to be part of the nation, right to be part of this democratic experiment. And if you trace the words throughout those 4 verses, what you'll see is that you becomes we becomes us right as the words go by like ever win Freeman shall stand between their left home and the worst desolation like best with victory in peace. May this heaven bless land. You know, it's it gets into this notion where that we have come together. So you have become part of this community. And that, I think is what's really is about. That's the song. And then the other thing that's important about the lyric is not a word. It's a punctuation mark. So what's the punctuation mark at the end of that first verse that we sing at every football game? It usually when we sing the song or we hear someone sing it, like Whitney Houston, we imagine that there's an exclamation mark at the end, right? That's like sort of patriotic triumph. What's really at the end of that is a question mark, right? Is like, oh, say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave or the land of the free and the home of the brave, is it still there or not? And for Key in 1814, that was like a literal thing. Was the flag over the Fort for us today, I think the question is, does what that flag represents that all of the states are together, everybody's got a star, everybody has a place, right? Is that still true? Are we brave enough to sort of live up to the notion of freedom that's in our ideals? That's that's what that lyric means to me. And it's a question. And so every time we play that song, we are answering that question for our community. We are asking that question and we are answering that question. And so I think if you can frame it for young musicians in that way, I think it might make the song urgent for them now, but also give them the agency to answer it. I think what's, what scares me most about the current political moment is particularly with young people, is that they feel like they don't have a voice. They, there's nothing they're going to do. Like everybody in the government is like 150 years old or whatever. Like, it's just like, you know, like they may not feel that they're part of this story. And I, I see that among a lot of my students, like this song doesn't mean to, to them, it's not part of their experience and the way it was for me when I was nine years old. And I think part of it is that the song has become the static icon has become this noun, has become this thing rather than a verb, where we're thinking about it as an act of devotion and a question that we need to answer. And if we can get the urgency of those two things, the doing and the answering think we can recapture really the magic that the song has for us and the possibility it has for us as a nation.
Well, I have some other questions, but I don't think we need to go there. I, this is I'm thinking about. I've, I've conducted the national anthem hundreds and hundreds of times. I've conducted on national television of John has as well. I've conducted it at the final four championship game with men's basketball. And I don't know that I ever, well, I'm ashamed to say that I never gave it that weight or depth in teaching, in sharing with my students. And I didn't know it what you've just told me. I'm like, Oh my goodness, this is such a different way to look at that. Even the question mark is so impactful because we do think of that as like this as a Oh yeah, it's this is the up moments. The it's heroic. And it's not, it's it's asking the question, are we living up to the ideal that's being presented? Are we still a nation man? What? That is a weight that I have never considered. So I appreciate you sharing that. I'm quite moved. So we usually we, we had a wrap up question. I'm like, I think we've wrapped. I think that's a really good stopping point and to encourage like, educators, you know, like, it's such an important conversation to have with our students. So actually Speaking of this, Mark, you have a book that's available that will talk about all of this. Do you want to talk about that?
Right. Yeah, somewhere there we go. Who's saying? Can you hear? So it's a Yeah, It's a book about the Star Spangled Banner. A lot of this history is there. There's a deep discussion about the writing of the song, about parsing the lyrics through all four verses and therefore discussion where the music came from. But also discussion of, you know, the anthem and slavery and race, which is another thing that probably some band directors are having to deal with people saying, like, what is this song? So I dig into that story, which is also complicated, but I think there's a way to navigate it. And yeah, it would be great if people would check out the book. It's available on paperback. It's only going to set you back about 10 bucks. And so it's be but it'd be lovely if people would check it out. It, it was a real act of love for me to write that book. And it's, you know, I initially was started in 2010. I spent like 1520 years writing this book, if you count all those lectures I gave in my intro class on American Music. And it just, the further I got into it, the more I sort of realized how big the story is and how important it is.
I'll say, can you hear everyone, Mark Clegg? Like check it out. Yeah. So Mark, this is a time in our podcast where we ask all of our guests 3 standing questions. OK. And I'll take the first.
Do you have? Warned me about these, John. I love it. See.
Do you have a soapbox topic, Mark? And it can be about anything, can be about music, about life, about whatever you want. Whatever you like.
Well, you heard one of them in our previous conversation. I mean, I think, I think the only soapbox conversation I'd have is like as a teacher, I mean, what I think is so important for young people today is just to, to do stuff and make it happen. Like to, to not wait for opportunities, to not wait for people to tell them what to do, but to, to experiment with and create their own life in a way. And so my big message would be go out there and make stuff happen, do stuff.
Gotcha, make it happen for my question is, are there or is there a particular book or books that have inspired you in your journey? Again, doesn't that be music? Just inspirational to your to your life.
Inspirational to my life. That's a really good question. I mean, most of what I read is pretty deep music history, right? So, but yeah, I mean, I'd, I, I write books and I and I love books. I read all the time. I think, you know, what I love reading is a lot of biography. And so I think that, you know, I don't know, I'd have to decide which ones to really, you know, give it. But like, Frederick Douglass's biography is a really amazing, like, and there's a lot of recent research in Frederick Douglass that would be worth digging into. Like, I think that story is, is super exciting. I mean, I think like there's a biography of Leonardo da Vinci, like that's also really great. But the stories of other people and how they have navigated the world. Billie Holiday's biography is another one that I, I really love and I, I share with a lot of students. And she had, she had a pretty tough life. And there's a real story of like overcoming adversity. And that's that's part of the do stuff idea as well as you're going to run into barriers, you're going to run into things that are hard, you're going to run into to, you know, blockades and locked doors. And yet you're going to find ways around them. And I think reading about the stories of other people and how they've navigated stuff because when you look at folks like David and John, like these folks who have, you know, we've conducted on national television and done all this stuff, you think, wow, I just have to be like that. But, but people don't necessarily know the story of how you had to overcome challenges and how like, you know, for all of those people you look up into in the world. And I think these days with social media, we, we tend to see the finished product and we don't see the struggles to get there. So I think that's what you get out of biography. So take your favorite person who you really admire and or someone like them and read their biography and just really get into what it was like to be in their shoes.
I love that, that's a great advice. And finally, the most important. Question is coming. The most important question of the whole day, Mark. All right. OK, so what's your favorite time signature?
My favorite time signature. Oh, that's, that's really good. Well, I, I like that 11/4 bar and Rite of Spring. I mean, that's always a nice one.
You were the only one that has said that thus far. It's because you're an academic, you know. I mean, you're so. Smart. We were started off with what musicologists do. This is what they do like. They have these details a slightly.
More common, it'd be 5/4 for sure, like 54. I, I love the sort of rocking back and forth between 2:00 and 3:00 and how composers like how that alternates like it's, you get patterns, but then it changes. So I think what's what's cool about 5-4 is that since it doesn't fall evenly and divide and it's and it requires like we don't feel things in five very often, but you know, so that's that probably is the I can tell you the piece of music that I think has the most interesting time start. OK, and there's got a so it's a Snarky Puppy tune Lingus. OK. Like I have spent it's first of all, it's an amazing, amazing performance. Jazz performance comes out of North Texas, right? Yeah. But it's like the way that they play with time in that piece is like mind blowing to me.
Yeah. I mean, everybody is a. Great group. Yeah, they're great. So talented musicians.
Well, although that's a really great answer, Mark, the correct answer was common time. So I just want to clear the air there. Even though all of this intelligence has affected me, I just, you know, in any case.
I stand corrected.
Hey, thank you so much for your time. This has been so amazing like just learning this information and really challenging me. The next time I conduct that piece is going to be different. I can certainly say that just from this conversation and I, and I truly hope that educators that are listening will also take that to heart, that it's a unique responsibility that we have the honor and privilege to do over and over in our lives. And it's not something necessarily, well, it's not something we should take for granted at all. I think it's something we should really consider. So that has really been impressive. Thank you. For being on the share this story.
Yeah, my pleasure.
And that's a wrap on today's episode. Thanks for spending part of your day with us on the Common Time Podcast. Today's conversation gave you something to think about or something to try with your students. We'd love for you to share this episode with a colleague. And you can also follow us on social media for episode clips, behind the scenes content, and updates to our upcoming guests. And if you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep making music and keep making a difference.