Allow me to rant.
In my opinion, I think national anthems are a sacred thing. They shouldn’t be tampered with.
Why do singers at sporting events constantly feel the need to do “their version” of the national anthem? Why is this a thing? Just sing the anthem! Don’t go changing the melody, or adding a few words at the end, or repeating an entire line for affect.
What are you doing?
It drives me nuts. Why are you giving us a cover version of the national anthem? Forget the Billboard Top 100, the national anthem is the most important song in the country.
Sing it properly. You’re not on American Idol. This isn’t The Voice. This isn’t YouTube.
There isn’t a panel of judges there to judge you on how you did. Though maybe there should be, to tell you how bad you did.
There isn’t a “golden ticket” you’re going to receive.
Randy Jackson isn’t going to tell you you’re “pitchy.”
Four music industry “giants” aren’t going to spin around in a chair.
The audience can’t give you a “thumbs down” rating.
When you’re done singing, you just walk off – give a wave to the crowd if you want, and then disappear into a private box.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.
I’m not a fan of singing anthems at a snails pace, hanging on every word just so you can get some watery eyes in the crowd. Maybe in a different setting, that would be acceptable. But at a sporting event? Come on.
Jamie Foxx destroyed the national anthem at the Pacquiao/Mayweather fight. I’m not even American and I was offended by it.
When these singers go through dress rehearsal, is no one of power in the building listening to them sing? Is there no one that can go up to the singer and say, “Hey, how about singing the anthem normally? Your rendition was terrible.”
Are egos so fragile that the most important song in your country isn’t important enough to put the “creative ego” to the side. If they’re trying to stand out by doing “their take” on the anthem, then someone is feeding them bad advice.
There are top ten lists of worst anthems ever. These top ten lists could be a top twenty-five, easily.
The last thought I want running through my head when the anthem is complete is, “Wow, that was terrible.” Don’t make me have negative thoughts about a national anthem!
Make it stop. Someone, please make it stop.
Just sing the national anthem. Please. Just sing it normally.
Our anthem is difficult to sing. Annoyingly so. Were voices different back in the day? Plus almost no one in the US knows the words. Listening to ANYONE singing it is embarrassing. Having close-ups of sports figures butchering the lip-synching is embarrassing. Having someone pretend like it’s their latest hit is nauseating. This is a tie. Paul 1, Barb 1. I agree with you completely. And now I’m finally caught up with your blogs and off to write my own.
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See I hear that a lot from Americans, that it’s hard to sing and no one knows the words. Then I sing it in my head and wonder where people trip up on it haha. Don’t tell me a Canadian knows all the words and thinks it’s easy to sing/say in their head and Americans don’t! Do they play the anthem in schools every day?
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It’s the word order which gets us in trouble. Do the rockets red glare in the dawn’s early air? Or Hey there, I mean Oh say, can you see in the dawn’s early glare?
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Oh man. As a kid I would just say “Jose can you seeeee…No no I can’t.” But in school they play the Canadian anthem every morning until the end of grade 12 so it’s just drilled into us.
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We say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I tell the kids it’s a math problem. We are “indivisible.” They only think it’s funny the first day. As I say it every morning, it gets less funny. Except to me. One morning I was saying the pledge and looking around the room to because I heard something and accidentally ended it saying “forever and ever Amen.” THAT they thought was funny.
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hahahaha amazing. Interesting. We got 3 or 4 versions of our anthem over the PA system every morning. 1 was normal. 1 was instrumental. 1 was in french. And 1 was like a 40 second sprint/rock version. I’ve always wondered why Americans know the pledge of allegiance better.
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I am as patriotic as it comes……grandfather and father graduated from West Point. Grew up a military brat. I agree with the pledge of allegiance in theory, but in fact, the “with liberty and justice for all” meant for land-owning white men. I like your description of your anthem. You should try to say it with every other word in English and French.
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Careful, you don’t want the school board to hear you! haha no I really shouldn’t. Our french anthem is unique in the sense that you can sing it entirely in french or you can sing the first part in french and then switch to english halfway through and no one even notices, seriously.
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I am learning so much about Canada from you. Seriously.
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Feel free to enlighten your friends and students. I won’t be offended if you don’t give me credit haha
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I tried that. “Did you know that in Canada they don’t say zero, they say zed?” “Don’t be stupid.” It didn’t work out so well for me. But if I quote you, then “Oh wow, that’s so interesting!”
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Oh fantastic!
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What kind of blogging fan are you if you can’t, even knowing that I’ve edited it a thousand and zed times, not tell me that I have “pay their portion of the the bill.” On my kazillionth reading I saw the double “the” and edited. Geesh.
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Sorry, in Canada it’s custom to write the word “the” twice in sentences. I just thought you were trying to relate..
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Why don’t we spell thought “thoght”? I know we joke about this,a lot, but it is curious to me why we dropped so many of the British spelling rules, while the Canadians didn’t. I had a linguistics Professor who said Americans are lazy in pronunciation. How was she gonna tell me that?
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We have Queen Elizabeth II on our coins. We’re loyal I guess.
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That’s true. Which will start a WHOLE other discussion. I glanced luckily, before I hit send, because thought was auto corrected to thought lol.
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Plus we only hear it butchered at sporting events. It’s not like we ever hear it sung correctly. And to change octaves back and forth so we don’t sound screechy is not an easy feat.
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I completely agree, not necessarily because I think it’s all that sacred (I mean it is but it’s not like it’s in my daily life), but come on now if your singing is longer than one round of the fight then that is obviously too long. At the very least keep it simple if you must change it we are not at Church let’s not drag every line out.
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I completely agree. Even for the Super Bowl, there are bets on how long the anthem will be and it’s normally over 2 minutes 30 seconds every time. That’s an awfully long time.
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Oh my God. And I thought I was the only one who hated this. It’s so, so, so, so Goddamn annoying!!!
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I’m so relieved someone else hates it as much as I do!
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Specially how they make stupid remixes. Like, go remix a Nicki Minaj song or something instead. Lord.
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Exactly! They can stay home in their fancy recording studio and remix every song in the world. But no, they go to a live sporting event and change the national anthem until it’s not even recognizable.
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Where’s the Thing (from Fantastic Four) when we need some serious clobbering?!
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I don’t know, we might just have to rely on earplugs this time haha
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Lol!:D
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I definitely agree with you! Whenever I hear the national anthem being sung at school or sports games, I think, “Can’t you just sing the damn thing normally? We don’t want to hear you over-indulge on the Star-Spangled Banner for twenty minutes!” Really, smh.
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I don’t like how the singer tries to make it about them when it really doesn’t matter at all who sings the song.
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So true!
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Ahhh!! So many posts! I can’t keep up with my stupid schedule!
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I’ll call your boss and tell them you need time to read my blog.
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