My Country Tis of Thee

Aretha Franklin Singing "My Country tis of Thee"

"My Country, 'Tis of Thee", also known as "America", is an American patriotic song, whose lyrics were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The melody is that of the British national anthem, God Save the King or Queen, although Smith encountered it by way of a German adaptation. The song served as a de facto national anthem of the United States before the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner"as the official anthem.

Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" in 1831,[3] while a student at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. His friend Lowell Mason had asked him to translate the lyrics in some German school songbooks or to write new lyrics. A melody in Muzio Clementi's Symphony No. 3 caught his attention. Rather than translating the lyrics from German, Smith wrote his own American patriotic hymn to the melody completing the lyrics in thirty minutes.

Smith gave Mason the lyrics he had written and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831, at a children's Independence Day celebration at Park Street Church in Boston. First publication of 'America" was in 1832.[3]