Traditional British Melody

The tune commonly called AMERICA in the United States is the same melody used for God Save the King. Its precise authorship is unknown. Henry Carey has often been proposed, but the attribution is disputed and is not accepted as certain by modern reference works. The earliest published forms of the tune appeared anonymously in Britain in the 1740s. By the time Samuel Francis Smith encountered it through a German song collection, the melody was already used for patriotic texts in several European countries.