Thoughts on our national anthem...

So yeah, Christina Aguilera muffed the words to The Star Spangled Banner. While we've been busy lampooning her, remembering other famously butchered anthem performances(Roseanne Barr?) and remembering the precious few that were truly inspired and beautiful performances, I've been thinking a lot about the song itself. Vocally it is incredibly demanding, as its melody puts the ranges of singers to the test. I think many singers take this as a challenge to their diva egos(Divagos?) and turn it into a pissing contest, when it really should just be sung thoughtfully and respectfully...and if we're lucky, in tune.

That got me thinking about the words to the song itself, which as an instrumentalist, I hardly EVER do. It occurred to me that I had spent the majority of my life just singing along, but never really thinking about the story the song was telling. Just like the Pledge of Allegiance which, when recited in our minds, is always in the voices of 2nd graders in the most monotonous manner possible. Why is that? Of course, 2nd graders don't really grasp the meaning of the concepts discussed in the Pledge, but they memorize it and recite it verbatim every morning for the majority of grade school.

I believe that the national anthem is no different, which leads me to suspect that a large percentage of Americans have probably never even contemplated the words that they are singing, but that they will no doubt chastise any singer for forgetting. Several years ago, I actually took a quiet moment to contemplate these lyrics for myself. Do you want to know what I realized? The words to our proud national anthem are confusing as hell! Grammatically vague and seemingly written in Ye Olde Englishe, it's no wonder nobody understands what the hell they're singing about.

Let's examine the first few lines..."O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming..."

First of all, I'm almost certain this is a question. Almost. Second of all, can somebody please come to the front of the class and circle the SUBJECT of this sentence is? No...you can't. And that's because the subject of this sentence isn't in this sentence. In fact, we are vaguely referring to our country's flag, but without actually coming right out and mentioning it. That tends to confuse people, when their sentences don't have subjects. I'll point out that the next line isn't any better. In effect, our national anthem is a series of backwardly written run-on sentences, very few of them actually mentioning the flag that the song is about. When you examine the lyrics, you are STUNNED to find out that the very last line isn't even a declaration about how brave and free we are and where our flag waves. It is another question. "O say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"

..................................

I don't know...does it? In a REAL Amurrca, no blue-blooded, God-fearing flag-waver would sit idly by while some sissy named Francis wrote us a national anthem that was so unsure about how awesome we as a nation truly are. Undoubtedly, a congressional mandate would, at the very least, intervene and force the inclusion of a "Fuck Yeah!" to end the song, casting away all doubt as to the size of America's balls.

So our national anthem, while it is truly a beautiful piece of poetry set to a fantastic melody, simply isn't approachable by the lay-person today. The grammatical prowess of our great nation just isn't up to the task of grasping the literary backflips this song throws at us, especially when all we grew up with was "Oops, I did it again". It's simple, and nobody is unclear as to what Britney was trying to tell us. She played with our hearts....again....and she is sarcastically apologetic about it because she thinks we're naive. Even 2nd graders can grasp that.

So what's the answer? Well, we're certainly not getting a new anthem, and I wouldn't agree to that anyways. Tradition is an important part of who we are, and I can't imagine the redneck revolt we'd have on our hands if anybody even suggested the possibility that we were too dumb for our own national anthem and that we needed a new one. I've decided instead to rewrite the words to The Star Spangled Banner. Not to be sung, of course,but just as a kind of a cheat sheet for anybody unsure about what it means. We could distribute them at sporting events and Nascar races(yeah, there's a difference). Here goes nothing...

Hey, can you see the flag that we very proudly salute, both against the sunrise and the sunset?
Which flag's broad stripes and bright stars were gallantly streaming over the ramparts we were watching during that perilous fight?
The light from all the explosions of bombs and various artillery shells illuminated our flag during the night, proving that it was still there(and therefore, that we had not been defeated).
Hey, does that flag still wave over the land of the free and the home of the Chiefs? *

....um.....I mean....the brave. I mean...does it?

......................................

I give up.


*Technically, if we're referring to Native-Americans, this IS the home of the Chiefs, but unfortunately they've been killed, mistreated, herded into reservations, and downgraded to 2nd class citizens. But we gave them casinos, so it's all cool right?