O Say Can You Sing? Christina Aguilera Accused of Butchering National Anthem

Christina Aguilera has become the latest star to apparently blow the national anthem. In her case, she left out the “O’er the ramparts we watched” — a critical and noticeable line. However, the real question is why we have a national anthem that only a castrato with a photographic memory can sing.

I do not wish to insult anyone, but our national anthem is pretty lame. It lacks the power of the “La Marseillaise” and the accessibility of “Oh Canada.” Just look at the words and think how few Americans can actually recite let alone sing this song:

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 through the mists 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 in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! 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 footsteps’ 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.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power 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!

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” anyone? I must say that I have long had a particular fondness for O Canada (as well as the Canadian flag). While it is a bit too late to take over that country to take either item, we might consider finding a song that a citizen can sing.

Source:Huffington Post