Buffalo Boy's Blog

Francis Scott Key, he has been dead for a while, but could you imagine if he were still around to hear disaster after disaster of his song that became our national anthem? All too often its treated as a joke that we get famous celebrities some good singers and some not so good to go out and essentially butcher the song. Last nigth, did anyone other than me hear Christina start singing the thing and think "Damn, the game isn't going to start for 15 minutes?" I did.

From Rosanne Barr's hideous vocals to Ozzy Osborne at the Cubs game to last night, Christina Aguilera, don't get me wrong she has a great voice, she can sing, but get it right.

Don't just get the lyrics right but sing the song it was meant to be sung. Don't add notes where they don't need to be added. The Star Spangled Banner is a good song all by itself without having some pop star try to do it in their own way.

I have watched thousands of regular season and playoff hockey games and not once have I heard the run of the mill anthem singer try to make either the Canadian National Anthem or the American National Anthem something its not. Its bigger than any star that can get up there and try to do it like it was their own. Its not their own, it belongs to me, you and every other US citizen and it should be sung straight up.

It was meant to be sung at a specific cadence if you will and not be......glamorized for lack of a better word by X pop star in a national spotlight. Don't turn a minute and a half national anthem into a 5 minute pop song, no pop star is that big to have that right. Just sing the anthem the way it was meant to be sung.

Who is to blame when things like last night happen? I blame the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA and other major events for allowing it and saying to these stars, your job is to use your voice and sing it the way it was supposed to be sung, don't turn the thing into something its not, something the writer, Francis Scott Key would probably be pretty pissed at right now. There are plent of professional anthem singers that sing the thing on a nightly basis at everyday sporting events who would love to be in Christna's shoes last night and they would have done a much better job than what she ended up doing.

She fucked up, she sounded good doing it, but she fucked up, and she deserved to fuck up, as does any singer who turns our national anthem into something that its not meant to be. Just sing the damn song.