"Oh, Say" is a three-verse satire of "The Star-Spangled Banner," metered to the original Anacreontic tune so it sings note-for-note. Delivered dead straight, it turns the anthem on itself: its origins as a gentlemen's drinking song, the buried third stanza mocking fleeing slaves, the unsingable leap on "the free," and the century it took Congress to adopt a question nobody quite dares to answer.