A childhood belief about misheard lyrics

O.K... I had the perspective of the Star Spangled Banner all wrong as a kid. When they said, "Oh say can you see?" I though they were just saying "Say the word "can you see." because I simply thought the "Oh" was a singing filler-in. I never understood why they said say "can you see", but there wasn't a line where we could actually say it.
It doesn't stop there. After they told us to say "can you see", they expected us to say it by the "dawn's early light." What? That was WAY too early in the morning to be singing some song on the horizon.