Just something to toss out there.... NOBODY EVER SINGS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN. So, even you traditionalists who may think embellishing is out of the question should be aware, you have probably never in your life heard it done like this or sang it yourself like this. It was written as an upbeat waltz kind of thing. No, you didn't sing it that way in your Boy Scout meetings. No, you didn't sing it this way at your school growing up. No, you didn't hear it this way at any baseball game you have ever attended. No, Sister Matilda never sang it this way at the church homecoming.
Here is the song the melody was derived from.
And here is the way that Joseph Nicholson took Francis Scott Key's poem and stuck it in the same melody..... kind of..... back in the early 1800s.
Never mind that the second through fourth verses are never, ever performed.
My question is this. Why is it that some opera singer singing it "straight" nowhere near the original tempo, or the way your Baptist Church sings it, or the way your Boy Scout troop sang it, etc. and adding only a few embellishments is somehow "traditional" when it sounds very dissimilar to the original? Francis Scott Key would probably hate the way you sang it when you were growing up.
Show the song some respect. That's all I ask. Sing it or play it "as it was originally written"? Meh. None of you have ever done that....unless you sing in the only group anywhere with a harpsichord and orchestra clipping along at a pretty fast pace. Why hold them to the same standard?
I think she did great. When she first hit it big, she tried everything in her power to make a spectacle of herself. At the game, she mostly stood still and let her pipes do the talking, wearing a (for her) subdued red suit and heels.
The offense in question.....
Not here to lecture anyone. Just tossing my opinions out like everyone else. Like what you like. Hate what you hate.
