(To 2Sense)
Uncle! You win.
2sense wrote:
Moi?
Why, I’d never do such a thing! Taunting is a 15-yard penalty, you know.
Returning momentarily to the main thread:
While TSSB is a pain in the butt to sing correctly (both because of long phrases requiring tremendous breath control and the huge range from bottom note to top note), it does have one thing going for it: it SOUNDS like a national anthem, certainly more so than America. A national anthem SHOULD invoke patriotic thoughts, else why HAVE one. After all, it isn’t your official national song in the way that Maryland, My Maryland is the state song of Iowa, or Idaho, or wherever. It is a song played to make you feel rousing thoughts of my country first before all others. In this regard, IMHO, La Marseilles manages the idea better than any other (who can possibly forget the singing of that song in Casablanca?). As between TSSB and America, the former, not the later, gets the blood flowing. Done during a time of patriotic fervor, you can’t HELP but think let’s go beat the crap out of some other country! Or has anyone forgotten Whitney and the Gulf War? 
I recommend that we change the anthem to that tune that always played at the end of the Benny Hill Show while he was getting chased around by the single-file line of half-dressed women he had just pissed off. If you want majesty during the medal ceremonies at the Olympics, I don’t know how you can top this.
Regarding various issues on anthems, touched upon on this board:
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To clear up an apparent confusion of one writer: “America” is not the same thing as “America the Beautiful”. “America” is the one that goes “My country, 'tis of thee…” to the tune of God Save The Queen.
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The Stars and Stripes Forever’s lyric does say “cheer for the flag of the free”. “Three cheers for the red, white, and blue” is from a different march.
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A martial lyric vs. a what-a-swell-country-this-is lyric is kinda value-neutral to me. But w/o rockets and bombs, the Hendrix arrangement of the National Anthem wouldn’t have come out quite the same…
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Speaking of which, it’s kinda puzzling that France, with an anthem that reads “Let their impure blood quench our parched soil,” didn’t seem to enjoy a higher degree of motivation among their home-grown regulars in the XXth century.
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Re: This Land Is Your Land – it is a pseudo-protest song, but you could make a solemn orchestral arrangement to give it “gravitas”
6)TSSB has only been the official USNA since the 30s. Before that folks used America, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Yankee Doodle, or whatever as the ceremonial signature song.
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The Internationale is one bitchin’ tune (though the official lyrics are sooo dated) but it was NOT the same thing as the Soviet National Anthem – another bitchin’ tune, BTW; maybe it’s available for licensing? – which replaced it as the official signature of the USSR in the late 30s.
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As to why people are not observing protocol during the NA – just another sign of the Death of Civility :). Besides, I dare suggest that an NFL playoff game, for instance, is kind of a hard place to attempt to sustain any sort of solemnity. BTW, I still remember my lessons in grade school from Mrs. Cheverez, teaching us to stand at attention and salute, and specially how you DID NOT APPLAUD THE PERFORMANCE of a National Anthem.
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Lee Greenwood’s piece of overblown maudlin schmaltz, that I will not dignify by naming it, was mentioned in passing. Let me take this chance to call it a lousy piece o’work and a pathetic display of commercial exploitation of cheap emotion. The day it was recorded it was performed once too often. And did I mention I really, really hate it?
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USAmericans could use any of stanzas of TSSS besides just the one about the bombs and rockets. BTW a National Anthem need NOT have a fixed lyric associated with it! In many countries, it is only the tune that is official. Spain does not have an official lyric for its current anthem. The Germans kept the tune adapted from (?Haydn?) of “Deutschland über alles”, but w/o the lyric, while someone rewrote a “PC” version; I’m not even sure if that got finally officialized.
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How about just changing the arrangement (make it a little flatter) so it’s easier to handle for Joe Q Average?
[hijack]
Um, the French disagree with just about everything. Stupid French. Let’s leave them out of this discussion about our national anthem, lest this thread be defiled.
[/hijack]
I do believe that the Stars and Stripes bears the honor of being our national march.
Also, just a thought… The melody of TSSB has a rather large range. However, most songs are not complete without some form of harmony and bass, so instead of singing the soprano part, we could sing alto, tenor of bass, for example?
Nick
JRDelirious wrote:
That’s the one that goes:
“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I think I’m free”
Right?
tracer:
That’s the one that goes:
“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I think I’m free”
Right?
Where at least I knowI’m free.
Actually a piece of legislation was introduced in 1981 by a democrat ( Andrews I think) to change the national anthem to America but failed in the house.
Just a few notes:
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Sports arenas should be allowed to play whatever they want before the game. For example, if it’s a high school game between one Hawaii team and another Hawaii team, played in Hawaii by people who have never lived outside of Hawaii, there’s no reason why they can’t just play Hawaii Pono’i and be done with it.
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If you’re going to have someone sing the nation anthem, with a microphone, on a big podium, in front of thousands and thousands of fans (not to mention the television audience), you had better be DAMN SURE that [s]he can handle it.
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If no such singer is available, there’s no reason they can’t go instrumental.
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Nobody’s gonna hear a single voice in the stands anyway, so if it’s a problem for you, don’t bother. There’s nothing unpatriotic about standing respectfully in silence.
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Please, pretty please, anything but that Lee Greenwood pap. As if it wasn’t bad enough during Desert Storm.