How many of you can sing the national anthem by memory?

25 comments

1. I know the first verse by memory, but not the others.

   I also know most of the words to Hail Columbia, and can recite [Red Skelton’s explanation of the Pledge of Allegiance](https://youtu.be/2HGHdFmu5GU) from memory.

2. I could recite it (assuming you mean just the first stanza that’s traditionally sung).

   But I couldn’t sing it with the lyrics and sheet music in front of me, or with musical accompaniment. At least not for any reasonable definition of “sing”.

3. I can sing the part they perform at baseball games – up to “the home of the brave”

   There’s more stanzas or whatever you call them that I don’t know.

4. First verse is all anyone ever sings, and I know the words. Don’t ask me to hit the notes — the tune is borrowed from a drinking song and you have to be drunk to hit some of them.

   If I’m gonna get drunk, I’ll just sing “O Canada” and hope for the best.

5. Most can sing the first verse. At least if they were in band, choir, or on a sports team growing up, and can sing. If they cannot sing they can recite it. Almost no one knows the following verses though.

6. Up to “home of the brave*

7. God save the queeeen lmao

8. All four stanzas, although I always need a glance at stanza 2 for some reason.

9. I can sing it. Not well mind you

10. I ran across this video that goes over the night that inspired the words to the anthem. It’s worth a watch.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxGNQE5ZLA

11. I know the first two verses. Thanks, Wikipedia!

12. I can sing the whole thing but i sing the version written by Francis Scott OffKey

13. Jose, can you see the dawnzer’s lee light?

14. We were required to learn it in music class in elementary school

15. Of course I know it.

    Oh say can you see?
    The pipes, the pipes are calling
    Our father’s god to thee, author of liberty
    From sea to shining sea
    Bombs bursting in air
    WOO!

16. Given how often it comes up in public school, I have to imagine basically every American has the first verse thoroughly memorized.

17. I can. We should stop having it before every damn event though

18. Never learned it

19. They made us sing it every Thursday in georgia. I can give you all of it, and pretty much anyone who’s been educated thru HS can too.

20. The first verse or the whole thing? Generally only the first is sung at sporting events and such, I don’t know many who could do the whole thing and I am not among them.

21. I can. But I used to perform it at sporting events regularly for several years. The fun ones were when I was just singing on auto pilot because it was so routine and blanked on a word for an instant. Moment of terror out on the ice with a microphone and jumbotron before the memory kicked back on.

22. Me

23. I can sing the first stanza. My singing isn’t always pretty though.

24. The standard first one part that everyone else knows, yes.

25. It’s burned into my brain, and I’m not even that patriotic. It surprised me to learn a lot of Americans don’t know it.