Here’s my rant…
OUR Country’s National Anthem was written to be sung by the masses…NOT some idiot “entertainer” stylizing it, forgetting the words, & NOT including the Fans in attendance. I am sick of this song literally being belittled & made fun of in the name of entertainment.
Here’s what I want to see…
Let it be played & sung (as written) EVERY Super Bowl by our Military Bands & Singers, accompanied by the Fans in attendance. Let the playing & singing of it actually MEAN something by it being a tribute to those who serve, served, & the many who gave their lives for our Flag. What better tribute than to have it led by those who now serve.
Maybe I look at things too simplistically, but IMHO, we need to “get back to basics”.
End of rant.
Mike
I agree Mike though I am thankful that we live in a nation where it can be changed without fear of official retribution and we also have the right to let the person who blew it knwo what we think.
Really makes me upset that she is from Wexford near Pittsburgh and she knows the anthem as she has sung it many times at Penguins games.
Here is my favorite version of it:
Choirs of the Armed Forces Acadamies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETrr-XHBjE
That is how it should be done!
I haven’t heard every rendition of the Star Spangled Banner but that may be the best ever. If you can’t hear the fly over after the National Anthem you need to take the top off your stadium.
Thanks for sharing.
While I agree that a group rendition would indeed be more patriotic, just be grateful that this recent solo was performed by a professional singer and not a bad actress with a voice that can irritate a deaf person (like Roseanne in 1990).
I’m not defending Christina for missing a line, but to even attempt such a solo in front of 100,000 plus and on world broadcast TV? I’d bet there is a very short list of people actually willing to even think about attempting it.
Don’t say she’s a professional she shouldn’t make those kind of mistakes either. The game was full of professional athletes and look how many mistakes were made during game play.
It was hard to listen and watch to that video and not tear up. We all have been so lucky to be born here in the USA. Those soldiers singing was awesome! Thanks nighthawk!
Yeah, too bad CA mangled it. She definately has the voice but totally blew it. I’d give her a pass if she had performed a “wardrobe malfunction”! Sorry, that was a bad joke and distasteful (the mental visual has merit).
All kidding aside, I bet more thought and BS talk was about the performance and clothing (or clothing falling off) than given to the words or meaning of then anthem.
Really sad part is our youth do not know that song, the Declaration of Independence, the pledge of allegence, and forget ever having to read the Federalist Papers.
I’ll stop before a I really start ranting.
Boyscout
Mike,
Could not agree with you more on what you said. Too bad the “powers that be” with the super bowl production don’t see it that way.
George
I have to disagree Mike. There cannot be only one right way to express patriotism. While I am not always impressed by some versions I think that the fact that the singer cares enough to perform from their own aesthetic is possibly even more important than that they have the right to do so. The best of the alternate renditions say to us that the musician has thought about the anthem and what it means to them. The easy thing would be to just mail it in. Instead they try to make a personal statement of their feelings about this country.
Guys and Gals
I truly believe that a countries National Anthem should not be messed with…
I think, and this is just my opinion that it should still be sung every morning in School right up until the little buggers Graduate
And that goes for both sides of the boarder.
Love that version Eric…
My take it that the “National Anthem” is to be sung the way it is written, score and text. if you change the music or the words you are not singing the National Anthem. You are singing the words to a poem written in the early 1800s put to your own music. If you choose to do so that is wonderful, but it isn’t the National Anthem and it should not be put forward as such. One of these days I would like to see a ball game start with verse two, three or four I doubt that many people would know what was going on.
http://www.national-anthems.net/images/hymny/us-hymn.gif
Eric
The music was not written as such. The poem was set to an old English drinking song. I don’t believe anyone performs The Star Spangled Banner because they think is is a great piece of music. They do so because it means something to them. I think it is a good thing that it means something to more than just middle aged white guys. As a nation we need those young people and we need them to be moved by that song.
For what its worth, Christina was interviewed after the fact and she DID own up to messing it up. It was not intentional, and she admitted that she simply got caught up in the moment and lost her place. When it happened, she knew she’d messed it up, but, like any good entertainer, she felt it better to press on and finish, rather than stop everything and start over. She apologized to the teams and fans as well.
While I wasn’t thrilled with the mistake, I do give her credit for owning up to it.
What I think doesn’t matter a whole lot, what happened happened. The fact that it was sung by some one the younger generation likes means that the younger folks will listen to them sing it and not go in the other room for more pizza… Would I like it to be performed flawless, yes… Do I think visual should be added of the ones who serve also during the song? yes.
I am with you on that Mike to. I was talking about it on another forum only to to be shot down by this. Maybe see you on the waters.
I agree. This is part of what gives her class in the first place.
By thw way. one of MY favorite renditions was the instrumental version Jimi Hendrix did at Woodstock in 1969.
you know on second thought The Star Spangled Banner was written in an precise way, a specific musical score adopted for it and it should be performed exactly that way. If you want to repeat a chorus or a stanza fine but do it the way it is supposed to be done. To the tune and cadence of the adopted score “To Anacreon In Heaven”. The poem written by Francis Scott Key is titled “The Defense of Fort McHenry”, the score is “To Anacreon In Heaven” and combined they compose our National Anthem titled “The Star Spangled Banner”.
Sing it the way this beautiful song was intended to be sung or shut up and go home. Just because you can’t carry a tune in a grocery cart or remember the words doesn’t make this anything less than a beautiful song. Freelancing it is done with the sole intent of drawing attention to one’s own self and not for patriotic reasons. Anyone who thinks our anthem is anything less than magnificent, thinks it is alright to sing it however you want to, not bother to learn the history of it or the entire poem and sing it to the tune of the original score needs to really learn to appreciate what it means to be an American. Stop taking this country for granted! I will gladly punch your ticket for Afghanistan or Bosnia for you.
No one on this earth has earned the right to sing this anthem more than those who have stood in harm’s way for it, shed blood for it and shed their own blood for it. PERIOD!
I love “O’ Canada” too so don’t even think about butchering it.
Be careful about tossing that patriot thing around too. Hitler and Napoleon were both patriots too you know.
Let the beatings commence.
Lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner. Warning contains a reference to God and conquering along with other notions that may burn the liberal tongue and eyes:
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
bout dam time they do it right!!!
Now if that don’t give ya goose bumps, nothing will!!!
As great as the National Anthem is, Rainbowchaser is correct. The ORIGINAL score was: " This melody was first published in England circa 1780, probably written by British composer John Stafford Smith. The words were written by Ralph Tomlinson. Both were members of the Anacreontic Club of London. To Anacreon in Heaven was their theme song. The Anacreontic Club was a group of wealthy men who met to celebrate music, food and drink. [excerpt taken from http://www.contemplator.com/america/anacreon.html ]
The Actual MUSIC of the National Anthem was taken from another song and Francis Scott Key wrote his own Lyrics. Since Key didn’t compose the music, how it’s preformed by anyone else is really irrelevant I would say. I wouldn’t give Key any more credit for the music that I would give Al Gore credit for inventing the Internet.
For those of a more faithful devotion, what are your thoughts on the numerous variations and versions of the Bible? Does anyone complain that any one version of the Bible is NOT original?
Try reading my post above again only try a different shade of lenses in your glasses this time, like maybe clear. I assume that you do understand that it is the combination of the Francis Scott Key poem “The Defense of Fort McHenry” and the score “To Anacreon In Heaven” written by an Englishman that make up our Naotional Anthem “The Star Spangled Banner”?
Yeah I complain about the various english translations and interpretations of the bible but in the end the questioning of my faith belongs not to you or any other man but to God.
Ummm, yes…there are a number of religious denominations to which there is only ONE true version of the bible, be it King James, or other, regardless of how our study of dead languages has improved translations. This happens elsewhere in history…remember Peking, China, or Mao Tse Tung, or Chaing Kai Shek? They don’t exist either.