Why did Aretha Franklin sing the British national anthem?
It did sound a bit like God Save the Queen, but for a good reason. In fact, Franklin sang My Country ‘Tis of Thee, an American patriotic song written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831, and quoted by Martin Luther King in his “I have a dream” speech. Smith apparently came up with the words in 30 minutes after Lowell Mason, a friend and leading figure in American church music, asked him to write new lyrics to tunes in a German school songbook. The tune Smith alighted on came from Symphony Number 3 in B Major by Muzio Clementi, an 18th-century composer. Charitably described by Mozart as “a charlatan, like all Italians”, Clementi was one of a number of composers who incorporated the familiar tune of God Save The King into their work: it turns up in Bach’s sixth keyboard concerto, Beethoven’s Battle Symphony and Haydn’s Opus 9. God Save the King had also been used as the tune for at least six other national anthems, including those of Prussia, Liechtenstein, Denmark and Norway, and to various
