the national anthem vs the star-spangled banner
Much has been made of Christina Aguilera's performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the game the other day. But I think people may be focusing on the wrong thing.
Yes, she botched some of the lyrics. But, at least in my hearing, she did what every professional should do in a situation like that: she played it off, and played it off well. She just filled in words from another part of the song, and it was seamless. I'm not quite sure if I'd have noticed had someone not pointed it out. And, of course, Aguilera being Aguilera, she sounded magnificent. She has one of the best instruments in pop music, honed by hard work and terrific musicianship.
On the other hand, there was something troubling to me about the whole thing. First and foremost, it has always bugged me whenever one performer performs the thing rather than having the entire congregation sing it themselves. The way I see it, when everyone in the stands puts their hands over their hearts and sings, it's the National Anthem. When a superstar performer offers up a rubato version, littered with ornamentations, it's just "The Star-Spangled Banner." The point of having the National Anthem at a game is completely obviated when this happens: the whole point is the ceremony of it, and it's killed when we sacrifice yet another community activity to the American cult of the superstar.
Come to think of it, we could be spending a Sunday afternoon outside playing football ourselves.
But hey, the Super Bowl is, at its best, a great show. This leads us to the second point. Because the ceremony of an anthem has been killed by gospel-inflected soloists (or, more accurately, by our hiring of them), the other participants in the ceremony have followed suit, and the camera has caught up. So, during Aguilera's performance, we no longer see Aguilera from beginning to end. The camera cuts to the day's gladiators, who are very obviously using the Star-Spangled Banner not as a National Anthem but as a Personal Psych-Up. One by one, we see players using this time to mentally and physically prepare for the game to come. One player seems to be worshipfully gazing at the flag with a tear in his eye: the rest are already playing.
Wouldn't it be great to see one of those uprisings of popular opinion, a demand that next year we get our National Anthem back?
Yes, she botched some of the lyrics. But, at least in my hearing, she did what every professional should do in a situation like that: she played it off, and played it off well. She just filled in words from another part of the song, and it was seamless. I'm not quite sure if I'd have noticed had someone not pointed it out. And, of course, Aguilera being Aguilera, she sounded magnificent. She has one of the best instruments in pop music, honed by hard work and terrific musicianship.
On the other hand, there was something troubling to me about the whole thing. First and foremost, it has always bugged me whenever one performer performs the thing rather than having the entire congregation sing it themselves. The way I see it, when everyone in the stands puts their hands over their hearts and sings, it's the National Anthem. When a superstar performer offers up a rubato version, littered with ornamentations, it's just "The Star-Spangled Banner." The point of having the National Anthem at a game is completely obviated when this happens: the whole point is the ceremony of it, and it's killed when we sacrifice yet another community activity to the American cult of the superstar.
Come to think of it, we could be spending a Sunday afternoon outside playing football ourselves.
But hey, the Super Bowl is, at its best, a great show. This leads us to the second point. Because the ceremony of an anthem has been killed by gospel-inflected soloists (or, more accurately, by our hiring of them), the other participants in the ceremony have followed suit, and the camera has caught up. So, during Aguilera's performance, we no longer see Aguilera from beginning to end. The camera cuts to the day's gladiators, who are very obviously using the Star-Spangled Banner not as a National Anthem but as a Personal Psych-Up. One by one, we see players using this time to mentally and physically prepare for the game to come. One player seems to be worshipfully gazing at the flag with a tear in his eye: the rest are already playing.
Wouldn't it be great to see one of those uprisings of popular opinion, a demand that next year we get our National Anthem back?
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