SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

I am so sick of people botching the National Anthem. Most recently some idiot forgot the second line at the Pepsi 500. Come on people. If you are asked to sing it, at least learn it and practice it before you perform it in public. And if you can't sing worth a crap, then don't do it, okay, Roseanne? For all you people who will be performing it, here are the words. Learn them. I don't want to hear any more "bright stripes and broad stars". I don't want to hear any more "through the perilous night". If you hum a line because you forgot or you screech "of the free", I will hunt you down.


Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof thro' 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?


For those of you who are wondering, the best performance ever of the Star Spangled Banner was Whitney Houston in 1991 at Super Bowl XXV. Jennifer Hudson is a close second at Super Bowl XLIII in 2009.