Members sang “To Anacreon in Heaven”, whose lyrics were written by society president Ralph Tomlinson. Held every other week, the meeting would begin with a concert of musicians and end with a dinner, puppet shows and other activities. Smith became a member of the Anacreontic Society, which first met in taverns on The Strand in central London, reaching around 80 members. He went on to join the Chapel Royal in London and was a pupil of composer William Boyce. The composer of the melody was John Stafford Smith, born in Gloucester in March 1750 and the son of a cathedral organist. It went on to be a common song sung in taverns in colonial America, but Congress did not name it the official US anthem until 1931. The song was named after a Greek poet called Anacreon, who gained notoriety for his poems about women and drinking. The melody to which Francis Scott Key set the lyrics was derived from “To Anacreon in Heaven”, the constitutional song of the Anacreontic Society, a private gentleman’s club in London.
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