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The Audio File #201By Ryan B. Martinez
O! say can you suck
The other day Yahoo! News delivered something amusing for once.
It linked to a video of Mike Eli, lead singer of the Eli Young Band, botching the National Anthem at the Chiefs vs. Broncos game last Sunday. El Pasoans might know him from his band’s two concerts at Whiskey Dicks earlier this year.
I love “The Star-Spangled Banner,” not only because it’s a beautiful song rich in history but also because its ritual performance at sporting events is a brilliant embodiment of American values. I’m referring to our love of excellence and our sadistic glee in watching people fall flat on their faces in its pursuit.
A performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is a tightrope performance. With its formal 19th-century syntax, one-and-a-half-octave range and customary (not to mention difficult) A-flat or B-flat key, it has sent singers plummeting to their reputation’s deaths at Little League baseball games and robot battles across the country.
Unlike the Mexican National Anthem, it’s no sing-a-long. Written as the British attacked Ft. McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812, the song has been lampooned for its ungainliness. “During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key wrote ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and when, by the dawn’s early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror,” quipped humorist Richard Armour.
But those who nail it, as Whitney Houston did, bring to life a soaring evocation of the pillars that hold this country so high: a lone singer (individualism), setting herself apart by mastering some difficult pursuit (exceptionalism) while a crowd of people sits on their asses – sorry, stand in their sneakers, with their asses aching to find seats again – just waiting with baited breath to boo at the slightest flub (democracy).
You fans of schadenfreude out there can find Eli getting booed online at Yahoo! or YouTube.
eli band screw up of the anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4d90YIvbI
this is definitely the worst i have heard... it never fail to give mi a belly busting eye wata laff...
carl lewis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLvCM4j2mg
O! say can you suckThe other day Yahoo! News delivered something amusing for once.
It linked to a video of Mike Eli, lead singer of the Eli Young Band, botching the National Anthem at the Chiefs vs. Broncos game last Sunday. El Pasoans might know him from his band’s two concerts at Whiskey Dicks earlier this year.
I love “The Star-Spangled Banner,” not only because it’s a beautiful song rich in history but also because its ritual performance at sporting events is a brilliant embodiment of American values. I’m referring to our love of excellence and our sadistic glee in watching people fall flat on their faces in its pursuit.
A performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is a tightrope performance. With its formal 19th-century syntax, one-and-a-half-octave range and customary (not to mention difficult) A-flat or B-flat key, it has sent singers plummeting to their reputation’s deaths at Little League baseball games and robot battles across the country.
Unlike the Mexican National Anthem, it’s no sing-a-long. Written as the British attacked Ft. McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812, the song has been lampooned for its ungainliness. “During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key wrote ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and when, by the dawn’s early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror,” quipped humorist Richard Armour.
But those who nail it, as Whitney Houston did, bring to life a soaring evocation of the pillars that hold this country so high: a lone singer (individualism), setting herself apart by mastering some difficult pursuit (exceptionalism) while a crowd of people sits on their asses – sorry, stand in their sneakers, with their asses aching to find seats again – just waiting with baited breath to boo at the slightest flub (democracy).
You fans of schadenfreude out there can find Eli getting booed online at Yahoo! or YouTube.
eli band screw up of the anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4d90YIvbI
this is definitely the worst i have heard... it never fail to give mi a belly busting eye wata laff...
carl lewis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLvCM4j2mg