Please Stand for Our National Anthem… (Update: It’s Pearl Harbor Day)
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
Update (II): I almost forgot it was Pearl Harbor Day. I was tempted to turn it into a separate post, but it seems more appropriate to mention here. (Sorry for the mistyped headline before.)
A country singer screws up the national anthem. Painful awkwardness ensues.
Of course if you want it done right, call Enrico Pallazo (classic clip from the late, great Leslie Neilson at the link).
Update: A discussion in the comments made me think of one of the best patriotic performance at a game ever, when Ray Charles sang America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl not long after 9-11. I tried and failed to find a video of that, but here is some really old video of Brother Ray singing the song. Going by memory, the Super Bowl version was better, but this is pretty nice, too. I distinctly remember big, mean-looking football players being reduced to tears. It was that good.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Nothing, and I repeat nothing, will ever top the excreable Roseanne Barr doing the anthem before a SD Padres game. As for the best, I’d have to put Marvin Gaye right up there at a Lakers game, followed by Lyle Lovett at this year’s World Series game in SF.
Dmac (498ece) — 12/7/2010 @ 6:41 amdmac
well rosanne was doing it on purpose. this country singer was being a moron.
My favorite patriotic performance like that, meanwhile, was not the national anthem but America the beautiful as sung by Ray Charles. i want to say he did it the same year that janet jackson got her boob all over the tube. But it was when 9-11 was still a raw wound and man, you saw these huge football players getting all misty-eyed, it was so beautiful. mmm, i think i will try to track that one down on youtube.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 12/7/2010 @ 6:59 amWhitney Houston’s National Anthem was amazing (sung shortly after 9-11). I seem to remember it was so stirring that they made a single of it. Can’t remember, but I think it was at the Super Bowl or the World Series. I do remember it was so good I got goose bumps listening to it.
Mike (017a94) — 12/7/2010 @ 7:16 amIf memory serves, the first guy to do a non-traditional version of the National Anthem was Jose Feliciano during the ’68 World Series. He took alot of grief for that undeservedly IMO.
BT (74cbec) — 12/7/2010 @ 7:34 amI remember Robert Goulet being boomed for flubbing one word ?fight/flight/night?
nk (db4a41) — 12/7/2010 @ 7:43 am*booed* by the audience
nk (db4a41) — 12/7/2010 @ 7:43 amWhitney Houston’s performance was at Super Bowl XXV, which occurred just days after the beginning of operation Desert Storm. Whitney’s performance is the most stirring rendition of the Star Spangled Banner — I still get chills from it.
aunursa (69b3db) — 12/7/2010 @ 8:10 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h9NN5FhJ7I
“Execrable” I like saying that word.
This was just ignorant. On the other hand, sometimes when you’re in front of a lot of people you can forget your own name. I don’t care how accustomed to performance you are. I speak regularly to 600+ people, but some days you just get a brain fart.
On the other hand, why can’t anybody just sing it STRAIGHT?
Gesundheit (cfa313) — 12/7/2010 @ 8:21 amGreetings:
I have a hard time watching the sports-related renditions of our National Anthem these days. My personal favorite was back in the Bronx of the ’60s at a Yankees’ opening day. Robert Merrill, an opera star, sang it beautifully. Apparently he understood what an anthem is and probably also looked at the sheet music, things which no longer seem to be required or even allowed. A rookie Red Sox pitcher produced a one-hitter, actually a kind of boring one-hitter and when the Yankees’ catcher Elston Howard, a popular player, got it in the bottom of the ninth, the fans actually boo-ed him because they lost their no-hitter story.
11B40 (745ed5) — 12/7/2010 @ 9:40 amI have found a couple of hand camera recordings of Ray Charles at Super Bowl XXXV but it looks like the NFL has been pretty thorough in removing copies of their broadcast version from Youtube and other sites.
Maybe on the Official NFL collection DVDs?
Jay H Curtis (8f6541) — 12/7/2010 @ 9:43 amI always thought it was a tribute to Charles’ grace and big-heartedness that he sang it the way he did, even though he was old enough to have heard first hand and lived through some of the worse aspects of our nature. He was able to look at the progress as well as know the past.
MD in Philly (cac12c) — 12/7/2010 @ 9:50 amNote the difference between bing.com and google.com today, re: Pearl Harbor
Jim,MtnViewCA,USA (5c9d97) — 12/7/2010 @ 10:01 amNever understood why people thought this Roseanne screech was clever or ‘the funniest thing’.
It seemed like a pretty boring way to explain that you don’t hold the song to be sacred, or that you don’t like your country. Hell, Ayers’s 9/11/2001 pic of him standing on our flag in a dirty alley was more clever, and that was pathetic.
I feel very sorry for this Mike Eli character. He kept trying to get the song right (and sucking) even after thousands were booing him, which I appreciate. It’s not that long of a song (section) to memorize… but if I were singing it, I’d surely bring the words on a notecard, just in case something in my head went wrong at the last second.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 12/7/2010 @ 10:35 amBut we already know that the people who run Google are a bunch of Obama wannabees. i.e. anti-American, socialist, …
Oh, hell, you all know what I mean. Even the trolls, if they could be honest with themselves for a change.
Jay H Curtis (8f6541) — 12/7/2010 @ 10:38 amAh, but always remember, Google’s mantra is “don’t be evil.” Never mind their acquiesence to the Chinese in helping out their dissidents, and now they’ve been secretely mapping out entire countries and addresses, with no civilian’s consent to do so. I thought the Lefties were duly concerned about privacy, no?
On the other hand, why can’t anybody just sing it STRAIGHT?
That’s why I loved Lovett’s version last Fall – as per his usual MO, he sung it straight and true. Guy’s still got an amazing voice, but then again I’ve always been a big fan of his work, going back to his early work “Pontiac.”
Dmac (498ece) — 12/7/2010 @ 10:44 amI love the tradition of crowds’ beginning to cheer when a singer gets to the words “land of the free.”
Ira (28a423) — 12/7/2010 @ 11:25 amThe singer did himself no good in his apology, by not even using the correct sport for his metaphor
“I’d like to apologize to the Kansas City Chiefs and their fans,” said Eli. “I was hoping to give you a better performance. I take singing our National Anthem very seriously and look forward to singing it again in the future. I promise to knock it out of the park the next time!”
(as cited in the comment thread at the link)
Nothing, and I repeat nothing, will ever top the excreable Roseanne Barr doing the anthem before a SD Padres game
And it showed a true lack of imagination. All that would be required for a demonstration of contempt for the anthem would be to sing it straight, but with the text originally associated with the melody. Is there any deep meaning to the fact that our country uses a reworked drinking song for its national anthem?
kishnevi (4e28b6) — 12/7/2010 @ 5:57 pm