BICENTENNIAL: One bar of the song and Americans know it is our queue to stand at attention.

Some put their hands on their hearts, most stand if they are able, all become instantly silent, showing their respect.

When Francis Scott Key’s words reach through the many decades, describing a morning after battle, it is hard not to remember generations of Americans’ — people who lived long before us — who worked to build the country and fought to make it their own.

His poem, from which the American national anthem — “The Star-Spangled Banner” — stems, will be turning 200 years old on Sunday.

According to www.usflag.org, it was the morning of Sept. 14, 1814, during the War of 1812, that Key, an American being held captive by the British, wondered of the outcome of what would be known as the Battle of Baltimore. He was reassured by the sight of an American flag still fluttering in the wind at Fort McHenry.

The quiet of the morning must have been a stark contrast to the sounds of battle the night before, the simple piece of cloth in the breeze seemingly powerful over the awakening battlefield.

A piece of cloth it might have been, but the flag that inspired Key’s poem was quite remarkable. The website, usflag.org, reported the flag measured 30 feet by 42 feet and displayed 15 two-foot-wide stripes and 15 stars that were two feet long each from point to point. The cost to construct the banner from wool bunting was $405.90.

While the United States has many symbols — the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty and, of course, the American flag, to name a few — a song can strike an emotional chord that an image cannot.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History celebrated the bicentennial on Flag Day, June 14, with a national sing-a-long called “Raise it Up! Anthem for America.”

The event included a Flag Day concert at the Washington, D.C., museum, and Key’s original manuscript and the flag that hung at Fort McHenry were on display together from June 14 through July 6.