I have a “Silly” genre on my iPod that has a lot of Richard Cheese and other great stuff, but also a random assortment of things that just make me laugh. Among these, even though I don’t know where I got it, is the January 21, 1993 recording of Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem (the only video link I could find seemed to be broken, but I’ll try to add it later). I really feel for the guy, but it’s hilarious (and I think he does a marvelous job of recovering, frankly).
So I was just wondering if there are any other famous examples of bungled anthem renditions out there (Roseanne aside, please).
I don’t know about famous renditions, but just about any major or minor league ballpark lets dozens of “talented” local amateurs sing the anthem before games, and I’ve heard of many cases of forgotten lyrics, unattainable high notes, etc., most of which are probably on tape somewhere.
One of the more well-known mess-ups is Caroline Marcil, a Canadian woman singing before a hockey game who messes up the Star Spangled Banner twice, retreats to the locker room briefly, then slips on the ice on her third try.
Then there was the NBA game several years back when the singer forgot the words to the Anthem, and Mo Cheeks came over and sang the rest of the song with her.
Some years back there was an American singer who obviously had no idea what the tune to “O Canada” was, and pretty much tried to fake it by using the tune to “O Christmas Tree”. It was a big deal in Canada for a couple days.
Elendil’s Heir, I’ve been to many a minor league baseball game. THAT pain, I am quite familiar with. But the expectations are also far lower in those cases.
Well, there’s no excuse there. Everybody knows that there’s only eight words to the Canadian national anthem, just put together in different ways:
“For thee
We stand
O Canada
On guard”
(Yeah, there’s a couple of other lines about maple leaves and “the True North” – but going “da-DA-da” in tune works on the rare occasions they come up.)
it is said that the screwed up rendition of the Croatian national anthem spurred on the Croatians to defeat the English football team and bar them from the European Championship 2008 some time ago.
It wasn’t an official opening ceremony, and I don’t have any particular anti-Hillary animus, but I found her off-key sotto voce singalong to be rather endearing, actually. A lot of us sing along under our breath like that, not always in tune, not always with the right words.
We used to go to the stock car races a lot and there were always US drivers there. Why we had to have the national anthems at all I could never figure out. The girl who sang them used to mess up the US anthem every single time. Always something. “Gallantly streaming” became “galliantly screaming”. There were many more. And off key, too.
Why do we have to have national anthems at sporting events? Unless it’s at an international championship, I don’t see any need at all.
No Maple Leaf in “O Canada”, either. Just “sons”. Canadian women don’t exist.
That’s why, when possible, I sing the first two lines in French, the next four lines in English, and the last two lines in French. No sons’ command, no excessively ironic native land, no porter la croix, no God keeping our land - and no rewriting. Very useful.
