Choosing Harmony Over Dissonance
Each year I usually share Horowitz's brilliant and virtuosic transcription of "Stars and Stripes Forever.” This year feels different. This moment calls for something more reflective. This moment calls for something deeper, more searching. We need less bombast and more honest reckoning.
So instead, I'm sharing my own recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" - one I made nearly two decades ago and never thought would carry the weight for me that it does today. It's a piece born from uncertainty, written by a man watching through smoke and darkness, asking a question that should still haunt us: "Does that star-spangled banner yet wave?"
Francis Scott Key wasn't celebrating - he was wondering if we'd survived the night. The anthem isn't really about triumph; it's about endurance through trial. "The land of the free and the home of the brave" isn't a chest-thumping boast - it's a hope, whispered into the uncertain smoke-filled dawn after a long, dark battle.
Perhaps we’re wise to ponder that original existential uncertainty. The flag still waves, but the deeper question remains: What kind of nation sits beneath it? Are we still the land of the free when so many feel unwelcome? Are we still the home of the brave when fear drives so much of our discourse?
The piece doesn't provide comfort or answers. It only asks us to keep watching through the darkness, to keep believing that morning will come, and that when it does, we'll still be here - imperfect but beautifully enduring, still becoming the nation we're meant to be.