In its best moments, the National Anthem is a heady combination of patriotism and emotional resonance, conveyed by force of dizzying talent. Think Whitney Houston’s career-defining 1991 take; Jimi Hendrix’s mind-blowing version at Woodstock in 1969; or Marvin Gaye’s soulful rethinking in 1983.
Then, there are the other times.
The complex compositional nature of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (which began its life, after all, not as a song but as a poem called “Defence of Fort McHenry” by Francis Scott Key), and perhaps the pressure to perform on what are usually very big stages combine to make for a multi-car pile-up kind of musical disaster.
In the end, there are actually things that are way, way, WAY worse than Fergie’s much-maligned “sexy anthem.” Seriously, waaaay.
For a little pre-game fun on this Super Bowl Sunday, we gathered together our least favorite for a new edition of Gimme Five that we call: When the National Anthem Was Simply Terrible…
For a singer of the National Anthem, Carl Lewis is an awesome track-and-field athlete. At one point during his mind-bogglingly terrible rendition before helpless fans at an NBA game between the Chicago Bulls and Nets in New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne Arena, the faltering nine-time gold medal-winning Olympic sprinter promised, “I’ll make up for it now.” He did not.
This then-up-and-coming Dominican singer not only wrecked the National Anthem during a pre-game performance at a Cowboys football game, she does so – dare we say it – with pride. The disconnect is remarkable as Deluna, despite taking a Cuisinart to one of America’s most treasured songs (we’re talking misplaced lyrics, wrong notes, over-the-top vocal whiffs), couldn’t look more confident. This lasts all the way up until the utterly horrid end, when Kat Deluna is showered (we’re sure to her complete amazement) by boos.
There was no reason this should have been so bad. You can question Aguilera’s choice of material across an up-and-down career as a pop diva, but never her powerful pipes. Yet her Super Bowl performance had already become a dud even before she hit a bum note to close things out, as Aguilera inexplicably went blank during the song’s fourth line – jumbling it up with some words from two lines earlier.
The raw meat-vocaled Steven Tyler, on the other hand, is a waste spill waiting to happen on a song that’s profoundly difficult to sing anyway. The hard part is not picking Steven Tyler for this list, but picking the worst of them. We finally settled on the AFC Championship Game from 2012, as Tyler’s ear-splitting mishandling of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (“the land of the free-YAH!”) is combined with another botched lyric.
Invited to perform before a baseball game between the Red Sox and Yankees, excruciating crooner Michael Bolton decided to be sure he didn’t make that kind of error – actually scribbling the words to the National Anthem down on his hand like a unprepared high schooler on exam day. In retrospect, getting it wrong may have been less embarrassing than being caught peeking at your cheat sheet. The crowd goes wild! In a bad way.
The gold standard – or what’s the opposite of that? the turd standard? – for botched National Anthems. Actually, that’s being too kind. It’s a stunningly wrong-headed joke and a career-defining misstep all rolled into one … with a frothy topping of anti-patriotic insult to make things complete. Appearing at a Padres baseball game, Barr caterwauls, completely off-key. She spits. She grabs her crotch. She makes a complete ass of herself. If there’s a worse version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” out there, please, for the love of all that is red, white and blue, don’t tell us.
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