spangle-noun-a small piece of bright metal sewn on fabric for decoration

Do you know what Big pup's favorite song is? It's The Star Spangled Banner. I'm not even kidding. He learned it in Kindergarten last year and it was love at first listen. When it would play on TV--for a sporting event--he would run into the living room and say, "Hey, it's my favorite song!"

His second favorite song is Life Is a Highway because of the Cars movie. I would like to tell him that Tom Cochrane did it so much better than Rascal Flatts but, meh, who wants to argue with a 7 year old?

Anywho, back to The Star Spangled Banner. It was originally written as a poem called Defense of Fort McHenry by Francis Scott Key back in 1814 (hello public domain!). And then it was set to music, renamed, and officially proclaimed as our National Anthem in 1931. There are 4 parts to the song/poem and the first part is what everyone knows but I kind of like the second one, too.

from The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Happy Fourth of July!