"The Star-Spangled Banner" by Whitney Houston

On this day in 1931 the United States officially adopted The Star Spangled Banner as its national anthem; just shy of sixty years later, Whitney Houston had a huge hit with the song, when she sang it at Super Bowl XXV. They were different times: President Bush led his country into a war with Iraq, despite an uncertain economy... Hm. Come to think of it, they were exactly the same times. Except, of course, that war had an exit strategy.  Sort of.

A n y w a y...  Houston remains the only singer to make the national anthem a chart hit, and she did it twice. A decade later, in the aftermath of 9-11, it was re-released, this time charting higher than it had before. Everyone has their own favourite version of the song, based on the singer and their style, but by popular demand surely this is the official favourite version.

Which is why I'm posting it here. Enjoy!
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"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Whitney Houston

Following the end of the First Gulf War in 1991, Whitney Houston sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic at a star-studded gala called Welcome Home Heroes; the song, written by Julia Ward Howe in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly on this day in 1862, has never rung truer, neither has Black History Month ever seemed as apt as it has done during the Obama Administration.
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