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Profs & Pints: Our Anthem's Strange Notes

Profs and Pints presents "Our Anthem's Strange Notes," with Marc Ferris, former history instructor at New York University and Hofstra University and author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America's National Anthem.

Oh say can you see a great talk that will change how you think about an American ritual, the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner before games?

Join Marc Ferris, a scholar who has extensively researched the national anthem, for a discussion of the strange history of a song many of us wrongly assume to be as ordinary as apple pie.

Much about the Star-Spangled Banner made it an unlikely candidate for the role it plays today. For starters, it has British origins. It was adapted from a paean to drinking, dancing, and sex. Congress took 117 years to get around to declaring it the national anthem.

Myth and controversy has long surrounded the tune. Colin Kaepernic was hardly the first athlete to protest during its singing, and Jimi Hendrix hardly the first or only musician to raise eyebrows with his rendition.

Ferris, who has discussed his research widely on radio and television, will bring his own guitar to punctuate his talk with live musical examples of forms the anthem has taken and other songs that were in the running. His talk will end long before the dawn's early light, but you'll find yourself having lots of fun while it lasts. (Tickets $10 in advance and $12 at the door.)