That’s my issue. I have no problem with someone singing the anthem, if they would just sing the damn thing. Don’t warble, don’t try to jazz it up, don’t rap it (yes, I have heard that), just sing the song the way it was written. Please.
I love the national anthem . . . the way it is written. I also dislike it when the singer only vaguely uses the melody as a guide for their performance.
The fourth verse is my favorite. We sing it in church every July. I can’t get through that last verse without tearing up. It gets me every time. But then I’ve also been known to tear up at the Maxwell House Christmas commercials.
Yes, but did they fly it upside down, as is proper when a Canadian team is playing in the World Series?
/sarcasm
Ha!
I was living in Vancouver during the infamous flag-upside-down incident. No-one seemed very offended; the most common reaction was a big :rolleyes: , accompanied by something along the lines of “Typical Americans!” 
I was in Toronto. There was some initial outrage, but it was tempered by the US Marines themselves, who asked if they could make up for the incident by providing the colour guard at a Skydome game. They were given permission, and they did a good job, flying the flag correctly. Most of Toronto, at any rate, forgave them after that.
Which was only fair, since a year earlier the Canadians had flown a U.S. flag upside down during a visit by the president or Secretary of State and the Yanks had not made any fuss about it at all. (The upside down U.S. flag was on a staff and had not been prominently displayed by an honor guard, so I suppose it was easier to ignore.)
In reaction to the Obamanthem-gate, I’ve recently asked some Brits, Australians, Israelis, and French about it, and not a single one says they would feel the need to put their hand over their heart during their anthem. That someone gets castigated for not doing so in the US tells me that we take our symbols way too seriously. I guess it’s a lot easier to respect symbols than the actual things they represent.
As a Kiwi I can’t think of a single time when I have ever seen a single person put their hand on their heart during the national anthem. The only time I see our anthem is when we are playing sport internationaly.
Our anthem is incredibly lame…“God defend New Zealand” but during those big sporting moments (Rugby World Cup…Yes we were complete CRAP) I like hearing the anthem but it is the Haka that really resonates. I couldn’t give a shit if someone down-trowed to the anthem, it’s how I feel about it that matters to me and how they feel about it matters to them.
I am very immature and it makes me giggle that when we sing the anthem in Maori (always) one small bit sounds exactly like “utter fucker”, that tends to be my focus when the anthem is being played (OHHH it’s the utter fucker bit! hehehe).
The anthem, any anthem is a lame song that provokes a moments pride if something good happened. The (any) anthem is not a religion or a counter espionage tactic for identifying the non-patriotic people. It is merely a (usually) fairly stupid song that we like when we win (or beat the Aussies in NZ’s case).
My favorite part of that incident was watching a game (must have been the Blue Jays) on television and the camera found a fan holding a sign that read: “The Few. The Dyslexic. The Marines.”
Mmmm, I’m going to disagree with the general sentiment here and say that I absolutely love the Star-Spangled Banner, and would be very sad indeed if “God Bless America” or “America the Beautiful” replaced it. GBA appears to be one (1) verse long, and, like ATB, contains two thoughts: 1) America shure is purty, 2) I hope God helps us win wars! ATB, in particularly, becomes shamelessly jingoistic further on, and seems to really exalt the beautiful American landscape and the ruthlessness of its founders above all else.
I think our current anthem is quite beautifully complex, and I like its narrative nature. Many other countries’ national anthems seem to be, “yay, us!” whereas the SSB is much more the story of a battle, and the emotions it evokes in the lyricist. And the antiquated language is so beautiful; how could we think of replacing, “whose broad stripes and bright stars . . . o’er ramparts we watched, were so valiantly streaming?” with “o beautiful for spacious skies”?
Finally, I like that the SSB does celebrate a trait of America which we ourselves laud as exemplary and which at the time, and to some extent still is, unique: American freedom. For good or for worse, Americans have much more freedom than many other peoples, and this song definitely hinges upon that, as opposed to, “we have lots o’ mountains, and also some fields, and they look nice in the moonlight.” So do France and India, so what?
I also wanted to add, upon edit, that I think that those who deride the SSB as too complicated are doing the U.S. a disservice; I feel like internationally, and domestically to some degree, we are mocked for general oversimplification of everything. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an anthem that embraces subtlety and intricacy?
Gestalt
I would love it if Myth Busters would do an episode on ‘American Freedom, is it freer then everywhere else?’. 
There are plenty of countries that have just as much freedom as America but the myth seems to argue with this fact.
I’m not sure. Maybe.
There are plenty of countries where, as I have heard it well described, “you can hear footsteps outside your door at 4am and be confident it’s the milkman and not the Secret Police”, but Americans seem to take the concept of freedom further than most other democratically governed peoples do. And they do this for better or worse - attitudes to guns would be an obvious example.
Ironically, US hunting laws* are incredibly strict- sure, you can buy a gun in K-Mart, but if you want to take it hunting, you can only put three rounds in the magazine, and you’d better have drawn a tag or gotten a permit before you shoot anything, and there’s only certain times of the year you can shoot certain things.
Now, in Australia, getting a gun licence and a firearm is a lot of work (and rightfully so, IMHO), but there are very few hunting restrictions- you can shoot deer whenever you like, you can hunt at night with a spotlight, etc. In the long run, I think it actually averages out.
I don’t actually think America is “Freer” than most other Democractic countries, but a lot of people in the US believe their own PR in this regard… Might be a discussion for GD, actually.
*They vary by state, of course
But why are guns and the right to cart them about with you an indicator of freedom? Perhaps it is coming from a culture where gun ownership has never seemed to be a big issue (farmers and hunters always seem to have them when they need them) is why I can’t understand it.
Freedom? Hmmmm what does it mean. Well it doesn’t mean the right to have a gun to ME. I’m happy that I can protest, belong to a union, live where I want, vote for who I want, believe in any god or no god, have sex with an adult of either sex, have a female as prime minister and loudly slag of Aussies without getting in trouble 
A lot of it has to do with the way the US became a Nation- by shooting a lot of British soldiers, and something about a bell with a defective structure . 
Seriously though, to a lot of US Gun Owners, the fact they can own a gun means they can defend themselves from Tyranny. It’s been well established that attempting to take on an M1 Abrams with a Remington Model 700 involve odds that not even William Hill would contemplate, but the basic principle is that by owning a firearm, your average American can defend themselves, hunt, provide food, and generally prove that they’re an independent person who doesn’t need to rely on The Government. Or something like that, anyway.
(Emphasis added)
William Hill? Is this someone with a real reputation as a sharpshooter, and if so, please provide a basic description for him, or did you mean William Tell?
(I’ve found a reference to a William Hill (1866-1934) who was an Austrailian politician, but there’s nothing in the Wikipedia article about his marksmanship.)
It is a large British bookie.
D’oh.
Thank you.
Note to self: Bookmaker does not mean what you think it means.
Here’s Asimov’s article on the National Anthem: http://www.purewatergazette.net/asimov.htm
He loved it. I’ll go with him.
The article ends, "I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.
And don’t let them ever take it away."
So to those who think it’s jingoistic, inappropriate, don’t want it to be sung, pit Asimov.