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This week, and for the first time on The Dabbler, it’s sing-along-a-Frank time!…

On this day 198 years ago, my near-namesake Francis Scott Key wrote his poem Defence Of Fort McHenry. It was later set to the tune of The Anacreontic Song by John Stafford Smith, in which form it is known to us as the American national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, with its stirring opening words “O say can you see?”.

Those five syllables could have been tailor-made for Theodor “Dr Seuss” Geisel, and he did indeed appropriate them (as “Oh say can you say?”) for a collection of “terrible tongue twisters” in 1979. This book gave great pleasure to the young Keys when tiny. More about the younger young Key in a moment.

Some while ago it occurred to me to pay homage, Frank to Francis, Key to Key, by writing an additional or replacement set of lyrics. Using my usual compositional method of wrenching forth words from the innermost core of my immortal soul, with much sobbing and panting and brain-fuming, I wrenched forth:

O say can you see only indistinct blurs? As you squelch through the marsh on your way to the pig sty.

In the cold misty dawn you are poked at with twigs by the sprites of the marsh who are strident and captious.

You’re not wearing your specs. You’re disorientated. You sink to your knees in the vapours of marsh gas.

The sprites harry you, and they hector you too. You spill all the pigfeed out of your tin pail.

Such a dawning as this, on a wet Wednesday morn, it does make you wonder why e’er you were born.

It so happened that one Thursday shortly afterwards I was accompanied for the live recording of Hooting Yard On The Air, my radio show on Resonance104.4FM, by Ed, the no longer tiny younger young Key. At the end of the broadcast, we struck up a duet of my revised version of the anthem, to which you may now listen (and sing along!):

O-Say-Can-You-See-Duet