Boy am I pissed! I work and attend a lot of sporting events and I've heard a whole lot of renditions of our National Anthem. Some are exceptional, most are average, and a growing number are just down right awful. No doubt the song has the reputation for being difficult to sing but when I'm standing there with my hand over my heart (the proper way mind you) I at least want to hear the right lyrics. When I do hear a singer butcher the lyrics I get mad.........Snot blowing, pissed off mad!
I was at the Charlotte Bobcats Basketball game on Tuesday April 10, 2007 (they played the Miami Heat) and heard another pitiful singer try to get the words right. Bad thing was the singer probably thought he was doing okay.
How did he screw up? Well, instead of singing "through the perilous fight" he sang "through the perilous flight"! ARRRRGGHHHH!!!!!!!!
So as a public service here's the entire Star-Spangled Banner lyrics. Be thankful the professional and amateur singers alike only have to sing the first stanza!
The "Full" Star-Spangled Banner Lyrics
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
’Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Later,
Marc
