oh say, can you s...ing the national anthem?

Many people have weighed in with their opinions regarding Christina Aguilera's rendition of the National Anthem at last Sunday's Super Bowl. I thought I'd take today's blog post to add one more opinion to the mix.

In case you haven't seen or heard about the incident, let me give you a brief explanation: Christina sang, "What the proudly we watched at the twilight's last gleaming" instead of the correct line, "O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming." Basically she sang the 2nd line as both the 2nd and 4th line of the song, with the word "watched" replacing "hailed" the second time through.

Christina has been absolutely crushed in the media, on twitter and in the blog-o-sphere. While I cannot defend her error, I would like to defend her...sort of. Let me explain.

Let me begin by stating that I am not a Christina Aguilera fan. Though I respect her vocal ability, I am annoyed by her insistence to double the length of every song with ridiculous runs at the end of every line. That being said, I'm indifferent toward Christina Aguilera, the singer, so I believe my opinion should be pretty unbiased.

Christina's botched lyrics are inexcusable in the same way that anyone singing any song in front of millions of people should know the lyrics backwards and forwards. I will argue, however, that people who claim it's somehow worse because it's the National Anthem are wrong. What she did was not unpatriotic and her citizenship should not be called into question. Sadly, many Americans don't know the proper lyrics to the National Anthem. I don't call their patriotism into question. I call their ability to remember lyrics into question. I think this accusation is a tall leap and is completely unfair. She's not the first to forget the lyrics (if you don't believe me, run a simple search for botched versions of the National Anthem on google; there are plenty of them), nor will she be the last.

Though there is nobody to blame besides Christina for the forgotten lyrics, I don't hold her completely responsible for the entire debacle. Why? Because I contend that she should have never been asked to perform the National Anthem at the Super Bowl in the first place. In my opinion, this was the real mistake. In fact, when announced that she was going to perform the National Anthem, I reacted negatively. A couple of guys at the same Super Bowl party immediately questioned my negativity. They argued that Christina has a great voice. I countered. While conceding that she is talented and has a great voice, I stated the following two reasons for my displeasure:

1. Because I knew that she would perform her runs on the end of every line (which she did) and, as I've already mentioned, that annoys me.

2. More importantly (and the real point of my blog post), my belief is that the National Anthem is an incredibly unique song that is only meant to be sung by certain individuals. It is incredibly rare that musical pop artists do well singing this song. "The Star Spangled Banner" simply takes a particular type of voice. And that type of voice, I argue, is not typically the same as the type that sells platinum records. In other words, I don't think pop music and "The Star Spangled Banner" mix very well. Instead of getting a big-name musical artist, they should just get a person who sings the song correctly and well.

At the end of the day, with or without the error, I've certainly heard many worse renditions of this song. Whether it's people who can't sing (like Roseanne Barr or Walter McCarty - search those if you don't believe me) or people who don't sing that style and/or change the song to fit their style (like Steven Tyler - I've heard more than one awful version from him), there are plenty of bad renditions of this song to go around.

When will the people who arrange the performance of the National Anthem for big events (or any event for that matter) learn that the audience cares more about the song being sung right than it does about the person (people) singing the song. The singing of the National Anthem is not the forum for popular musical artists to perform.

I think this problem is even magnified in the Super Bowl's case because they already have a forum for popular musical artists to perform--during the halftime show. This year, they handed those reigns over to a terrible-sounding Fergie with the Black Eyed Peas and an awkward cameo by Slash from Guns N' Roses (made more awkward by Fergie's "dancing" around him). This was not surprising, however, as I think the Super Bowl has struck out in most (if not all) of their halftime performances in recent history. But I digress.

So, did Christina mess up? Yep. Does she deserve the criticism to the level she's been receiving it? Nope. What do I think should be done about it? I think people should take that critical energy and focus it on the decision to have her perform the National Anthem in the first place, in order to ensure that we don't repeat these mistakes in the future. The real mistake was in the decision, not in the performance.