Oh Say Can You Hear….

This post is more of a Dennis Miller type rant, and will have less journalistic feel, but this is something important to me. Our National Anthem is being DESTROYED. Everyday, somewhere in this county, someone is singing our National Anthem for various reasons: to start a ballgame, for a school class, or simply because they feel like it. But lately, I have become sickened at the last few attempts I have witnessed at the performance of in the case, young ladies singing this great song.

Every year during the holidays, my hometown sponsors a high school basketball tournament. And before each session, three a day, they open with either the playing or singing of our National Anthem. On the second day, a young lady took the microphone before the last session of the day, and the audience was filled with anticipation of watching this cute girl belt out a lovely rendition of our National Anthem. Instead, what came out of this girl’s mouth was vile. The young lady took a song that all should hold dear, and butchered it, ruining it. It was not so much that she could not sing, but the emphasis and the way she sang it that bothered me.

I left that game thinking well; it was just a high school game with a very young girl. It can’t happen like that all the time. Boy was I wrong. Just two weeks later, while awaiting the anthem before a local college team, the Evansville Aces, I ran across the similar problem; a lovely young girl who butchered our anthem. No way could I have heard two horrible renditions in two weeks, could I? What did these two young ladies do that I found so appalling? Let me explain.

It wasn’t there voice or the fact that they even tried, I understand our National Anthem is one of the hardest songs to sing. I applaud anyone who at least has the guts to try. I don’t have to hear an angel singing to feel the spirit of that song. But what these two did was put themselves ahead of the anthem. They played with their pitch, they held out notes too long. They generally disrespected our anthem by trying to bring more attention to who they were, then what they were singing about. That disgusts me.

This maybe nothing new, Roseanne Barr, or whatever he last name is now, completely made of fool of herself years ago at a professional baseball game. And I am sure this happens all over the country with different individuals in different ways. The truth is, that flag and those words will be here long after anyone who sings them will be. They will be but specks in time, whereas this anthem, our anthem, will be regarded as belonging to the best country in history.

So my advice to all those you wish to sing our National Anthem sometime in the future, respect the flag, respect the audience, and respect yourself by simply singing the anthem so that all those can resonate its aura along with you. Because when you’re asked to sing the anthem, it isn’t about you. It’s about a fledgling young country, fighting for its freedom from tyranny. It’s about young men and women dying so that you can sing that anthem. It’s about honoring an idea started over two hundred years ago, and growing stronger all the time.