Listening to Ingrid Andress’ performance at the MLB Home Run Derby on Monday night, it occurred to me that we might now be able to retire the coveted trophy given to the worst national anthem performance at a major U.S. sporting event. Please try to hear.
To my ears, the only real competitor is Fergie’s performance at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game. [I have eliminated Roseanne Barr’s spectacularly awful 1990 performance before a San Diego Padres game from consideration because she clearly wanted it to be awful, and that violates the rules of the competition.]
I don’t want to be too critical of Ms. Andres for admitting that she was intoxicated after the show. She clearly has a pretty serious alcohol problem. Getting drunk before the most important show of her life is a horribly self-destructive thing to do. She has since checked into rehab and I wish her all the best in her recovery.The message she posted on Instagram I hope that the announcement of her decision was intended to be received as sarcastic, not encouraging.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was really drunk last night. I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need. I’ll let everyone know what rehab is like! I hear it’s a lot of fun.”
Speaking of national anthems, recent international soccer tournaments in Europe and the U.S. have rekindled my love for them. Nothing gets the blood pumping more than hearing 30,000 or so people belting out “La Marseillaise,” “The Italian Song” and “Oh! Canada!”
I wonder if there has ever been a comparative study of the world’s national anthems. allAs far as I can tell, they all sound like they were written in Vienna or Dresden around 1880. There’s a great collection of them all. here— Pick a few randomly and listen to them: China, Cameroon, El Salvador, Bahrain, Uruguay, Pakistan, …
It’s very strange when you think about it. Nicaragua, Senegal, the Comoros, Malaysia, Tunisia, Argentina – each of these countries has its own unique Very distinctive There are national musical traditions, and each country has its own “national anthem,” a song that sounds like it came out of Johann Strauss’s workshop.
Apparently, this remarkable uniformity is largely interpreted as a holdover from the colonial era. But many of the relics of that increasingly distant colonial era have been abolished as constitutions are rewritten, new languages ​​are declared “official,” and public school curricula are revised. Why doesn’t anyone change the national anthem? This could be an interesting subject for a book.
The article “The Star-Spangled Banner Through the Ages” originally appeared on Reason.com
