![]() Many Phish fans were familiar with Hendrix’s version and were surprised when Phish performed the song a cappella. ![]() Without words, Jimi asked those same questions: Can you see it, out there, in the darkness sprawled across Yasgur’s farm? That is our hope. Hendrix’s raging instrumental histrionics symbolized – and later served as a metaphor for – that same people’s search, from the darkness of the Vietnam War and civil rights conflicts and toward a hoped-for future. ![]() As the sun began to rise at Woodstock, the lasting impression was delivered from an otherwise empty stage, to throngs of collapsed people. Over 150 years later, Jimi Hendrix revised the song for a new era. But those first two stanzas merely pose the question: Can you see it, there, in the explosive flashes of light? Isn’t that our flag, our hope? The other six narrate an earnest search in the war-torn night sky for the flag, symbolically and metaphorically a people’s hope and inspiration in a dark time. Only the first two (of eight) stanzas are commonly sung. National Anthem – to the tune of an Irish drinking song – on September 20, 1814, while watching the defense of Fort McHenry against a British attack.
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