As I write I’m fading in and out of watching the Super Bowl half time show featuring the Black Eyed Peas, failing auto-tune technology, and a guest appearances from Slash of Guns ‘n Roses and Usher (so far). Of course the Super Bowl is the single most widely viewed television program of the entire year. 100 million Americans are currently enduring this musical show. The half-time show is probably not the musical event of this evening that will be most widely discussed, however.
The national anthem was sung by Christina Aguilera. Instead of the third line of our nation’s anthem, “O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming” Christina sang “What so proudly we watched, at the twilight’s last streaming.”
This, of course was buried under many layers of diva-like styling, scoops, belts, and the like. Not many in room apparently knew that anything wrong had even happened. The singer quickly covered her tracks as best as she could by belting out at the top of her lungs the next line–the tear jerker–”and the rocket’s red glare…”. The crowd erupted in approving shouts of praise, admiration and ecstasy. The camera pans to players on the field who are shedding tears, and to a shot of U.S. troops in uniform, proudly looking on.
The entire stadium seemed to be overcome with such an overwhelming emotional experience that no one was even able to realize that the text that was being sung wasn’t even the national anthem. The text actually made no sense at all!
I wonder what this says about American musical values? It is no wonder why the task that lies ahead of those who serve the music of the liturgy is so great. The essence of liturgical music is a liturgical text, rich in theological and liturgical content, clothed in sacred melody that lifts the mind and soul to prayer.
This is the three-headed beast that we are up against:
23 Replies to “American Popular Musical Values”
Okay, now I don't feel as stupid as I did during the half time show and the national anthem fiasco. Both were travesties – the TEXT almost unintelligible in both instances. I kept saying, "I can't understand a thing they're singing about" to my bewildered husband. We both looked at each other with looks of "what was that" after Christina dismantled the Star Spangled Banner. I'm glad someone of musical ability and intelligence had the same feelings about the loss of meaning and text integrity… I would venture a guess there are many more folks out there scratching their heads in disbelief…
Another way to look at it is this. This is what the world offers. What does the Church offer?
Adam, I thought the same thing. In fact, I just finished reading Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." In this book, Postman discloses how the television has changed the manner of discourse in virtually every area of society. He has a chapter on politics, a chapter on religion, and a chapter on education. Each of these areas has suffered because of the influence of television. I bring this up because I couldn't help but think, during the Black Eyed Peas "concert", that Postman should have included a chapter on how television has changed the music industry. "Music" is hardly an appropriate term for what we just endured. Yet at the same time, the crowd erupted for the performance. It is hardly a wonder, then, that sacred music has a tough sell to make. As much as our culture has deadened its moral consciousness, so too has it deadened is aesthetic consciousness.
That being said, it is in the liturgy that we must being the slow and painful process of restoring a proper sense of beauty. Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world, and liturgy is supposed to be our experience with beauty par excellence. If that is true, then I have a feeling that Fr. Zuhlsdorf is right … save the liturgy, save the world.
Well, I'm Portuguese but that doen't make any difference to what I'm about to say: A national anthem has the meaning that we all know. It pisses me off when those "great" singers have these "approaches" when singing it. The anthem has a melody and text, and none should be altered.
Wow. I missed the national anthem, but that is just wrong. Her voice isn't even sound that good! (either that or she doesn't know how to use it)
As a person who loves good pop music (and fortunately missed the whole game) I would say that the NFL's efforts here are about celebrity, not music, and certainly not excellence.
Some pop singers who probably would render the anthem exceptionally: Martina McBride, Pat Benatar, Alison Krauss, to name a few from various genres.
Personally, I prefer when the people sing it. I always sing along when I'm at a game. Imagine 100,000 fans singing the anthem. I bet they would.
"The anthem has a melody and text, and none should be altered."
Actually, there is no official version of the American national anthem. I'm sure Jeffrey Tucker would approve of this.
Funny, Adam, prior to the game, which I didn't finish in order to help a friend with a Mass, we watched a concert by Amy Winehouse. I'd never encountered her, tho' quite aware of her rep. I remarked how unaffected and "pure" to the R&B style she adhered to my wife, without all of the flourish that entered the pop genre somewhere north of Whitney Houston. Aguilera is, contrary to Ben's assessment, an incredible vocalist. I sat with Herbie Hancock on a flight when he was doing his compilation album with a number of major talents, and he mentioned that Aguilera was heads above so many others. So I've paid attention to her since then. She is a real talent. However, besides a Robert Goulet moment (look it up, she ain't the first or worst) she is encumbered by a pop culture that is bankrupt as to recognizing the attributes of a "real voice" such as Sinatra, Marvin Gaye or even Streisand, and demands the uber-rococo improvisational ornamentation wherein a melody is ne'er to be found. Who to thank? Dunno. Michael Jackson around "Thriller?" Stevie Wonder? Sandi Patti? Doesn't matter anymore. Aguilera has pipes; heck, GaGa has pipes. Neither requires digitalization; not even Fergie of BEP actually requires digitalization. But the monster that is the pop culture requires more Matrix than Memorex. But no one, no one holds a candle to Singing Mum in a three second plus reverberant chapel. That's singing.
Oh say can you. See.
"The camera pans to players on the field who are shedding tears, and to a shot of U.S. troops in uniform, proudly looking on."
Oh how I'm glad that in this cynical land of the stiff upper lip that if Johnny Wilkinson were to shed a tear to the strains of God Save the Queen on the hallowed turf of Twickenham (references to God's own sport of Rugby for you colonials) I'm certain that Martin Johnson would storm onto the pitch and smack him square in the face for being a complete big girl's blouse. And Johnny would probably thank him for sorting him out while any massed troops on the sidelines called him a poof and otherwise questioned the masculinity of anyone who got even slightly bleary eyed at anything less than 12 pints of Weirsteiner and a bratty mit pommes und mayo.
No, seriously……
But what's really disturbing is that at the mention of Alison Krauss I find myself agreeing with Todd. I'm off for a long conversation with myself over that one……..
The best setting of the anthem is the one composed for the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A rare setting that at least starts quietly and respects the mood of the lines of the first part of the text, though it would be wonderful to have a setting that managed to express the question at the end as a question, not a rhetorical question….
To be fair, I'll bet a lot of Americans don't get the syntax of the SSB, with its verbal phrases carrying over the musical phrase (that should say something about appropriate tempo, but if you kept it moving, you'd never get all those licks in). So they probably didn't even notice the changed words, which made no more sense to them than the ones they're used to. Since the people should understand their anthem, I'm offering an alternative version inspired by the style of the NAB and the 1970 Missal. One could argue that I've changed the meaning of the end, but people don't understand abstractions like "free" anymore. I propose this one be implemented within a year; folks will pick it up, even if they know the old one.
Say there, can you see in the morning's first light what we thought was so cool when it got to be eve'ning. All those stars and big stripes through the dangerous fight over sandbags we watched. In the wind they were waving. And the rockets' red flare, the bombs' blowup in air showed all through the night that the flag was still there. O say, does that star-stripey flag still fly high In the land where we're fed and cared for 'til we die?
Well I would much prefer the people singing the national Anthem – or a Robert Goulet rendition – to the efforts of ‘celebrities’ who seem to be more about flaunting their own vocal abilities than rendering a patriotic tribute. I usually avoid the half-time extravaganzas, using the time to refresh drinks and take care of bodily needs. I came back near the end and viewing the antics on the field my comment to my wife was: “The Chinese are better at that…”
However, the Packers won and – being a Cheesehead – that was all that mattered!
As a Canadian, I have to say I never cease to be amazed that Americans, known as thy are for their patriotism, keep putting up with this nonsense. A national anthem should not be a vehicle for that kind "artistic" expression. Perhaps they put up with it in the name of the freedom that they so rightly love.
Please accept my comment and included link as they were intended, in jest and with deepest respect and appreciation for the American people and nation.
Let's see, Keith, if I can tweek Allison Krauss out of your sweet spot…. Best version by a self-accompanied pop icon- James Taylor at either an NBA championship/all star game with his custom Olsen guitar. Taylor can sing the phone book. OTOH, if we recall, there was some stir over the singing of OSCYS at the Packers/Bears NFC championship a couple of Sundays ago. Talk was that some histrionic pop singer was on deck, but replaced by the "Mr. Smith" accountant who normally sings prior to the Bulls' NBA games. He did. His baritone profundo nearly broke flat screens in my estimation. But I found that oddly just as unstirring as an Aguilera flub. My creed dictates that I join in whenever it's performed, in whatever key, and even if it's led by the resurrected foursome of Caruso, Lanza, Sills and Sutherland. (BTW, Canada, nicely done on "O Canada" at Vancouver bye and bye.) Same reason I don't need no how to ever hear nobody belt out the Franck at some megaMass Communion moment in a stadium, cathedral or strip mall. Period. Give me "Gustate videte…" and a humble schola, or give me death!
Charles, way big agreement on James Taylor.
I was close friends with the coach/GM of a local hockey team a number of years ago, looking for young talent to sing the anthem before games. I sent instrumentalists his way, a saxophonist and a clarinetist. I knew they would be good, well received, and charmingly different from the usual fare.
When I lived in Kansas City, choirs I accompanied sang at MLS and minor league baseball. The former insisted on a pre-recorded track to "dub" into the sound system. (Did you know that Whitney at Supe XXV was lip-sync'ed?) The latter asked the kids to sing take me out to the ball game at the 7th inning stretch.
Here's a lob over to Canada: love your anthem; have you tried singing it to CRUCIFER?
There may be "no official version of the American national anthem," but there is a standard version—To Anacreon in Heaven, written by John Stafford Smith, and in that form recognized for official use by the U.S. Navy in 1889—which should be close enough to official for most purposes. As a retired Naval Officer, and despite being among the least musically talented, and most basic, of church choristers, I am, quite literally, fed up with the simps and narcissists (who consider themselves, mostly incorrectly in my opinion, professional singers) increasingly imposed upon us by the sports/entertainment industry.
Pax et bonum, Keith Töpfer
If the military wants to do it one way, why should we all have to do it that way? Sounds more like Prussia than the United States.
This, friends, is the beauty of having no official version of the song. Creativity can flourish. The good and the bad are placed side by side. We are free to judge using our own aesthetic sensibilities. And, yes, our judgments reveal a lot about our character.
If the singing is bad, that's one thing, but please, let's not stamp out interpretations that don't suit us.
Robert Leblanc said it best above: "Perhaps they put up with it in the name of the freedom that they so rightly love." Exactly, but it's not only the freedom that Americans love, it's the freedom Americans rightly possess.
The tune of our anthem is a drinking song with a wide melodic range. After a few drinks, its much easier to sing.
Tina in Ashburn
Todd;
I had no idea you were a Kansan… I grew up in Prairie Village back when it was about as far out as one could go before running into farmland.
I always find it funny to hear about Alison Krause… I had to give her an "incomplete" in sight-singing and keyboard theory her freshman year at the University of Illinois as she left in the middles of the year to go on a tour of Japan. Her uncle was my individual studies professor for my Doctorate and he assured me it wouldn't matter if I gave her an incomplete. He said she would do just fine… I still laughwhen I think of that.
I hope my insurrectionist friends won't take it amiss if I say it warmed my heart to hear the soloist do to the "Star Spangled Banner" what the Royal Navy failed to do to Fort McHenry.
Given the overwhelming disapproval on every blog, every newspaper, and every TV station for this performance, I don't think you can possibly argue that people couldn't tell that it was bad.
People will tear up during the National Anthem anyway. It's not about Aguilera, but the occasion and their own feelings of patriotism. Cruddy singing can't dim that.
Okay, now I don't feel as stupid as I did during the half time show and the national anthem fiasco. Both were travesties – the TEXT almost unintelligible in both instances. I kept saying, "I can't understand a thing they're singing about" to my bewildered husband. We both looked at each other with looks of "what was that" after Christina dismantled the Star Spangled Banner. I'm glad someone of musical ability and intelligence had the same feelings about the loss of meaning and text integrity… I would venture a guess there are many more folks out there scratching their heads in disbelief…
Another way to look at it is this. This is what the world offers. What does the Church offer?
Adam, I thought the same thing. In fact, I just finished reading Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." In this book, Postman discloses how the television has changed the manner of discourse in virtually every area of society. He has a chapter on politics, a chapter on religion, and a chapter on education. Each of these areas has suffered because of the influence of television. I bring this up because I couldn't help but think, during the Black Eyed Peas "concert", that Postman should have included a chapter on how television has changed the music industry. "Music" is hardly an appropriate term for what we just endured. Yet at the same time, the crowd erupted for the performance. It is hardly a wonder, then, that sacred music has a tough sell to make. As much as our culture has deadened its moral consciousness, so too has it deadened is aesthetic consciousness.
That being said, it is in the liturgy that we must being the slow and painful process of restoring a proper sense of beauty. Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world, and liturgy is supposed to be our experience with beauty par excellence. If that is true, then I have a feeling that Fr. Zuhlsdorf is right … save the liturgy, save the world.
Well, I'm Portuguese but that doen't make any difference to what I'm about to say:
A national anthem has the meaning that we all know. It pisses me off when those "great" singers have these "approaches" when singing it. The anthem has a melody and text, and none should be altered.
Wow. I missed the national anthem, but that is just wrong. Her voice isn't even sound that good! (either that or she doesn't know how to use it)
As a person who loves good pop music (and fortunately missed the whole game) I would say that the NFL's efforts here are about celebrity, not music, and certainly not excellence.
Some pop singers who probably would render the anthem exceptionally: Martina McBride, Pat Benatar, Alison Krauss, to name a few from various genres.
Personally, I prefer when the people sing it. I always sing along when I'm at a game. Imagine 100,000 fans singing the anthem. I bet they would.
"The anthem has a melody and text, and none should be altered."
Actually, there is no official version of the American national anthem. I'm sure Jeffrey Tucker would approve of this.
Funny, Adam, prior to the game, which I didn't finish in order to help a friend with a Mass, we watched a concert by Amy Winehouse. I'd never encountered her, tho' quite aware of her rep. I remarked how unaffected and "pure" to the R&B style she adhered to my wife, without all of the flourish that entered the pop genre somewhere north of Whitney Houston.
Aguilera is, contrary to Ben's assessment, an incredible vocalist. I sat with Herbie Hancock on a flight when he was doing his compilation album with a number of major talents, and he mentioned that Aguilera was heads above so many others. So I've paid attention to her since then. She is a real talent. However, besides a Robert Goulet moment (look it up, she ain't the first or worst) she is encumbered by a pop culture that is bankrupt as to recognizing the attributes of a "real voice" such as Sinatra, Marvin Gaye or even Streisand, and demands the uber-rococo improvisational ornamentation wherein a melody is ne'er to be found. Who to thank? Dunno. Michael Jackson around "Thriller?" Stevie Wonder? Sandi Patti?
Doesn't matter anymore. Aguilera has pipes; heck, GaGa has pipes. Neither requires digitalization; not even Fergie of BEP actually requires digitalization. But the monster that is the pop culture requires more Matrix than Memorex.
But no one, no one holds a candle to Singing Mum in a three second plus reverberant chapel.
That's singing.
Oh say can you. See.
"The camera pans to players on the field who are shedding tears, and to a shot of U.S. troops in uniform, proudly looking on."
Oh how I'm glad that in this cynical land of the stiff upper lip that if Johnny Wilkinson were to shed a tear to the strains of God Save the Queen on the hallowed turf of Twickenham (references to God's own sport of Rugby for you colonials) I'm certain that Martin Johnson would storm onto the pitch and smack him square in the face for being a complete big girl's blouse. And Johnny would probably thank him for sorting him out while any massed troops on the sidelines called him a poof and otherwise questioned the masculinity of anyone who got even slightly bleary eyed at anything less than 12 pints of Weirsteiner and a bratty mit pommes und mayo.
No, seriously……
But what's really disturbing is that at the mention of Alison Krauss I find myself agreeing with Todd. I'm off for a long conversation with myself over that one……..
The best setting of the anthem is the one composed for the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A rare setting that at least starts quietly and respects the mood of the lines of the first part of the text, though it would be wonderful to have a setting that managed to express the question at the end as a question, not a rhetorical question….
(the anthem starts at the 1:30 mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NgA-tPk_hU
This comment has been removed by the author.
To be fair, I'll bet a lot of Americans don't get the syntax of the SSB, with its verbal phrases carrying over the musical phrase (that should say something about appropriate tempo, but if you kept it moving, you'd never get all those licks in). So they probably didn't even notice the changed words, which made no more sense to them than the ones they're used to. Since the people should understand their anthem, I'm offering an alternative version inspired by the style of the NAB and the 1970 Missal. One could argue that I've changed the meaning of the end, but people don't understand abstractions like "free" anymore. I propose this one be implemented within a year; folks will pick it up, even if they know the old one.
Say there, can you see in the morning's first light
what we thought was so cool when it got to be eve'ning.
All those stars and big stripes through the dangerous fight
over sandbags we watched. In the wind they were waving.
And the rockets' red flare, the bombs' blowup in air
showed all through the night that the flag was still there.
O say, does that star-stripey flag still fly high
In the land where we're fed and cared for 'til we die?
Well I would much prefer the people singing the national Anthem – or a Robert Goulet rendition – to the efforts of ‘celebrities’ who seem to be more about flaunting their own vocal abilities than rendering a patriotic tribute. I usually avoid the half-time extravaganzas, using the time to refresh drinks and take care of bodily needs. I came back near the end and viewing the antics on the field my comment to my wife was: “The Chinese are better at that…”
However, the Packers won and – being a Cheesehead – that was all that mattered!
As a Canadian, I have to say I never cease to be amazed that Americans, known as thy are for their patriotism, keep putting up with this nonsense. A national anthem should not be a vehicle for that kind "artistic" expression. Perhaps they put up with it in the name of the freedom that they so rightly love.
On a lighter note – you might appreciate this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7xixfoG8Ag.
Please accept my comment and included link as they were intended, in jest and with deepest respect and appreciation for the American people and nation.
Let's see, Keith, if I can tweek Allison Krauss out of your sweet spot….
Best version by a self-accompanied pop icon-
James Taylor at either an NBA championship/all star game with his custom Olsen guitar.
Taylor can sing the phone book.
OTOH, if we recall, there was some stir over the singing of OSCYS at the Packers/Bears NFC championship a couple of Sundays ago. Talk was that some histrionic pop singer was on deck, but replaced by the "Mr. Smith" accountant who normally sings prior to the Bulls' NBA games. He did. His baritone profundo nearly broke flat screens in my estimation. But I found that oddly just as unstirring as an Aguilera flub.
My creed dictates that I join in whenever it's performed, in whatever key, and even if it's led by the resurrected foursome of Caruso, Lanza, Sills and Sutherland.
(BTW, Canada, nicely done on "O Canada" at Vancouver bye and bye.)
Same reason I don't need no how to ever hear nobody belt out the Franck at some megaMass Communion moment in a stadium, cathedral or strip mall. Period.
Give me "Gustate videte…" and a humble schola, or give me death!
Charles, way big agreement on James Taylor.
I was close friends with the coach/GM of a local hockey team a number of years ago, looking for young talent to sing the anthem before games. I sent instrumentalists his way, a saxophonist and a clarinetist. I knew they would be good, well received, and charmingly different from the usual fare.
When I lived in Kansas City, choirs I accompanied sang at MLS and minor league baseball. The former insisted on a pre-recorded track to "dub" into the sound system. (Did you know that Whitney at Supe XXV was lip-sync'ed?) The latter asked the kids to sing take me out to the ball game at the 7th inning stretch.
Here's a lob over to Canada: love your anthem; have you tried singing it to CRUCIFER?
There may be "no official version of the American national anthem," but there is a standard version—To Anacreon in Heaven, written by John Stafford Smith, and in that form recognized for official use by the U.S. Navy in 1889—which should be close enough to official for most purposes. As a retired Naval Officer, and despite being among the least musically talented, and most basic, of church choristers, I am, quite literally, fed up with the simps and narcissists (who consider themselves, mostly incorrectly in my opinion, professional singers) increasingly imposed upon us by the sports/entertainment industry.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
If the military wants to do it one way, why should we all have to do it that way? Sounds more like Prussia than the United States.
This, friends, is the beauty of having no official version of the song. Creativity can flourish. The good and the bad are placed side by side. We are free to judge using our own aesthetic sensibilities. And, yes, our judgments reveal a lot about our character.
If the singing is bad, that's one thing, but please, let's not stamp out interpretations that don't suit us.
Robert Leblanc said it best above: "Perhaps they put up with it in the name of the freedom that they so rightly love." Exactly, but it's not only the freedom that Americans love, it's the freedom Americans rightly possess.
The tune of our anthem is a drinking song with a wide melodic range. After a few drinks, its much easier to sing.
Tina in Ashburn
Todd;
I had no idea you were a Kansan… I grew up in Prairie Village back when it was about as far out as one could go before running into farmland.
I always find it funny to hear about Alison Krause… I had to give her an "incomplete" in sight-singing and keyboard theory her freshman year at the University of Illinois as she left in the middles of the year to go on a tour of Japan. Her uncle was my individual studies professor for my Doctorate and he assured me it wouldn't matter if I gave her an incomplete. He said she would do just fine… I still laughwhen I think of that.
I hope my insurrectionist friends won't take it amiss if I say it warmed my heart to hear the soloist do to the "Star Spangled Banner" what the Royal Navy failed to do to Fort McHenry.
Given the overwhelming disapproval on every blog, every newspaper, and every TV station for this performance, I don't think you can possibly argue that people couldn't tell that it was bad.
People will tear up during the National Anthem anyway. It's not about Aguilera, but the occasion and their own feelings of patriotism. Cruddy singing can't dim that.