This is an opinion column.

The “Star-Spangled Banner” didn’t make me love America. Had nothing to do with it. Not one stanza. Not one note. Not a single word.

I love America because of the sacrifices of so many—generations ago, and still. Because of its promises (though many remain unfilled) and opportunities (as inequitable as they are).

I love America, indeed, in spite of America.

Not because of the national anthem.

State Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, wants our children to hear the song every week in school. From the day they enter kindergarten until they leave high school. He says it’ll teach them to love America.

More likely, it’ll teach them to hate the song.

C’mon now. It’s not a great song. How many times have you heard: Hey, let’s put on the “Star-Spangled Banner”? Said no one, ever.

One part—you know what I’m talking about—makes dogs howl. I drop a silent prayer for whoever’s singing it as they approach it. Lord, please let them hit that impossibly high note. And spare the dogs.

The words? Please. How many of our kids, for starters, know what “spangled” means? They might get “O’re” as a precursor to the social media shorthand they all use. What about a “rampart”? (A protective wall). And “streaming”? As in streaming content service?

C’mon now.

How many memorable renditions of the song do you recall? Go.

Almost everyone cites Whitney Houston’s prerecorded (c’mon now) version before the 1991 Super Bowl. Luther Vandross did the thing, too, before Super Bowl XXXI in 1997. Many talented singers have survived the anthem, many have not.

I was in the building for the best live national anthem performance ever. (My column, my vote) It happened four decades ago, before the 1983 NBA All-Star game at The Forum in Los Angeles when Marvin Gaye delivered an anthem that dropped soul from every word, every note. Even that part.

The day before, I met him just as he was about to rehearse in the near-empty arena.

“Hi, I’m Roy,” I said, shakily, reaching out.

“Marvin,” he said. No… well, never mind. You know what I thought.

Gaye’s anthem the next day lasted three minutes, about a minute longer than most. (And that was a trimmed version of the rehearsal.)

As it crescendoed, the players’ faces—usually stoic and numb from so many pre-game anthems—rose, their expressions shifted. Fans in the arena took their right hand from their heart and began clapping rhythmically with Gaye’s cadence.

When he hit that part, cheers rose.

I’m not sure which version of the anthem Allen believes the children should hear. I’d be all for playing Gaye’s version. It may not cause them to love America more, but may certainly spur them to love the song.

Even if they don’t understand all the words.

Rather than forcing them to hear the song every week, our children would be better off if they studied it.

Better off learning its lyrics of course were birthed as a poem by Francis Scott Key, an attorney, written as he watched the British rain shells and rockets on Fort McHenry on the Baltimore Harbor on September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812.

Better off learning that after 27 hours of bombing, Key saw the American flag still flying, even amid the fort’s rubble, signifying a U.S. victory.

Better off learning the poem was originally titled “Defence of Fort McHenry” (and learning the correct spelling.)

Better off learning Key watched from a boat in the Chesapeake Bay after negotiating the release of a friend from British arrest. Because Key’s ship was surrounded by the British fleet and he was privy to their plans he was not allowed to return to shore until the battle was done.

Better off learning the actual Star-Spangled Banner sits at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Better off learning the melody was originally a bawdy British drinking song.

Better off learning the song has more than one stanza—even better off learning the third stanza’s words:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Better off learning their meaning: Key was saying the British couldn’t save the enslaved from the hell we have for them over here—o’re the land of the free, etc, etc…

Better off learning thousands of enslaved Blacks in America escaped and, in some cases, joined the British forces against America, significantly pinching Southern pockets.

Better off learning the song hasn’t even been our national anthem for a century. In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order making it the anthem for the military (Better off learning, too, that Wilson was an unabashed racist.) But it didn’t become the national anthem until President Herbert Hoover signed it into law in 1931, a year after Congress approved it despite objections over the lyrics and its drunken musical origins.

Better off knowing “America the Beautiful”—a truly good song—could have been our national anthem, had not Congress chosen otherwise.

Better off knowing the anthem wasn’t always a fixture at sports events. As patriotism soared after World War II, then-NFL commissioner Elmer Layden declared that the anthem should be played before games. Until 2009 teams were not even required to be on the field during the anthem.

Our kids are far better off knowing this, too—that the “Star Spangled Banner” is not played before legislative sessions in Montgomery.

Not a single note.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

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Tell me why, Republicans; or do silence and gun deaths speak for you?

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Attack on trans influencer by Republican female governors is beneath the office

I’m a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts: “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. My column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Stay tuned for my upcoming limited series podcast Panther: Blueprint for Black Power, co-hosted with Eunice Elliott. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach me at [email protected], follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj