STAND UP AND SING

Hallelujah! Alright already.

It was on this day in 1743, that George Frideric Handel’s oratorio "Messiah" had its London premiere. During the famous Hallelujah Chorus, King George II was so moved by the music that he involuntarily rose from his seat. The audience, out of respect for the king, also stood up. Ever since, it has been a tradition that the audience rises during the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus.

That is from today’s The Writer’s Almanac. I’ve never been to a performance of the Messiah, though I’ve heard it many times.  And many more times than that, I’ve heard the “Hallelujah Chorus.” If I’m alone in the house, I sing at the top of my lungs.

I’ve seen the whole performance on television, and I never knew why the audience, or congregation in that instance, all rose for the chorus. Now I know.

I brought to mind a little bit of family lore I absorbed as a “little pitcher with big ears.”  My grandmother was relating how, during the years of World War II, my grandfather refused to stand with everyone else in the audience when a patriotic song – perhaps “God Bless America” – was played in the theater before a movie. He refused to stand because the song they were playing was not our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” My grandmother thought about it, said “Oh!” and sat down.

It’s interesting how a bit of information will set my mental cogs to turn and come up with some distantly related memory or topic.

Happy Thursday!  - or, remembering my Steinbeck: Sweet Thursday. (See how those cogs turn?)

Did you ever hear the Hallelujah Chorus sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?
Powerful. Gives you chills.

OUR ANTHEM AS IT SHOULD BE SUNG

If you love choral music, as I do, and if you think, as I do, that our anthem could be better sung by everyone at any event, then listen to this gem my cousin Bill, connoisseur of all things as they should be, sent this week: Our National Anthem as sung by choir students attending a Kentucky Music Educators Convention.

If that doesn't satisfy your soul, then nothing will.

I've written before about our national anthem, most recently on the 200th anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner. That was a re-entry and update of a previous blog of mine. I also wrote about it here and here.

It curdles my innards when a lone, probable immensely popular, singer belts out a usually poor rendition of the anthem. I am of the firm belief that everyone attending should sing the anthem at any event where it is played. It may not be the easiest anthem in the world to sing, but it is ours. Sing out Americans!


FYI - The eagle photo is mine.

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER AT 200

I was reminded that today, September 14, 2014, is the 200^th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore, and the writing by Francis Scott Key of what has become our national anthem: The Star Spangled Banner. In light of that, I decided to rerun an essay I wrote in 2012. Our national anthem has become a pet topic for me. The song is rousing, yet for many hard to sing. Once man did get it right, and I wrote about that too.  I do wish that ‘the powers that be’ at any event where it is sung would encourage everyone to sing it. We need everyone’s participation these days.  

The Star Spangled Banner was made our national anthem just over eighty years ago in March 1931.  1931 was the year the Empire State Building was completed and the year my husband was born.  Two out of three of those have weathered well – one, the anthem, has not. 

I’ve always found it hard to sing.  It starts out in a fairly comfortable range, but then “the rockets’ red glare” takes the range sky high. Years ago everyone sang it at the start of sporting events. Today some rock group or rap singer or some sponsor’s wife does the rendition. Many flub the lines. The younger generation’s singers just have to jazz it up and add notes that were never in the score. The singing wives, who really are fine in the church choir, should never be encouraged to get up and sing alone. This is our national anthem, for pity’s sake, let’s not abuse it.

A notoriously bad version - Oh, yeah!

Hard to sing or not, it would be less painful to the ears if everyone sang as they once did. Just think of the money NASCAR or other sports organizers could save if they’d just have everyone sing it in one rousing chorus – flags waving, jets roaring by overhead.  Sounds good to me.  But then I realize that having all these stars around entices fans to get to the track or to watch the race on TV.  With a sigh I say “Oh well, the almighty dollar wins again.”

Whenever the subject comes up it’s for sure folks will agree that our anthem is hard to sing, and most will suggest we’d be better off with a rousing rendition of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America.  Don’t hold your breath kiddies!  Though it has become popular to play it at many sporting events, especially in the National Hockey League, (after all, there is no law that says a national anthem has to be played) the politically correct in this country wouldn’t have an anthem that contained the word “God”.* I don’t know how these same folks handle their greenbacks though, what with “In God We Trust” on all our currency.  Perhaps they rely totally on electronic banking.

This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie’s great song, might come under consideration, especially if we stuck to just the first two verses. “This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York Island” – it covers the whole nation.  But in the original version, after the first few verses it begins to sound like the protest song it is. Guthrie wrote it in 1940 as a rebuttal to Berlin’s God Bless America, which he thought unrealistic.  God Bless America does get my vote though. Anthem lyrics aren’t necessarily realistic, but they should be patriotic, extolling us as we can be our very ‘finest hour’.  Realistic lyrics would have to be changed on a regular basis according to the state of the union, and would read like the front page of a major national newspaper.

There’s a lot to be said for America the Beautiful – but God is in the lyrics there too, wouldn’tcha know.  And it’s a song that’s usually played slowly and with a bit more, shall we say, reverence than our current anthem, making it a poor choice at sporting event s.  Yes, “God” is in the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner: “and this be our motto: ‘In God is our Trust.’”  Rarely do we sing on down to that fourth stanza to note it. At the time our anthem was chosen the movement toward political correctness was not even on the horizon. I wish Congress had stuck with Hail, Columbia. Maybe they can bring that one back.

You can go on line and come up with many differing opinions on the current song and its suggested replacements – I just thought I’d add my own thoughts to the mix.

*They’re after the Pledge of Allegiance too. Read this recent article from the UPI.

GIVE THIS MAN A MEDAL

Did you see the NASCAR Daytona 500 on Sunday? Did you even see the opening ceremonies? Well, Give Clay Cook a bright and shiny medal – he sang the Star Spangled Banner just as it should be sung. He might have looked a bit scruffy – this is a sporting event, not the Elks Ball - but he was there and he was good! I’d never seen or heard him before, but you can be sure he and the Zac Brown Band will be on my radar screen now. If you have a minute you can check it out here on YouTube. There was no musical accompaniment, but he sang it without wandering all over the scale, and, moreover, he sang it straight – no jazzing it up with trills and high notes that aren’t there. The only way it could have gotten any better would have been for everyone there to be singing with him. I have a set of bookmarks for my favorite YouTube clips – great Coca-Cola, VW, and Budweiser ads, Jeanne Roberts and The Vicar of Dibley, great cartoons and such - this one is now included in the group.

You might want to read my rant The Star Spangled Banner - or Not. I do hope that this great rendition of our national anthem is a sign of things to come at NASCAR – but I’m not holding my breath.

 

The Curmudgeon says: "and add a red, white and
blue ribbon to that shiny medal."

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER - OR NOT

The Star Spangled Banner was made our national anthem just over eighty years ago in March 1931.  1931 was the year the Empire State Building was completed and the year my husband was born.  Two out of three of those have weathered well – one, the anthem, has not. 

I’ve always found it hard to sing.  It starts out in a fairly comfortable range, but then “the rockets’ red glare” takes the range sky high. Years ago everyone sang it at the start of sporting events. Today some rock group or rap singer or some sponsor’s wife does the rendition. Many flub the lines. The younger generation’s singers just have to jazz it up and add notes that were never in the score. The singing wives, who really are fine in the church choir, should never be encouraged to get up and sing alone. This is our national anthem, for pity’s sake, let’s not abuse it.

A notoriously bad version - Oh, yeah!

Hard to sing or not, it would be less painful to the ears if everyone sang as they once did. Just think of the money NASCAR or other sports organizers could save if they’d just have everyone sing it in one rousing chorus – flags waving, jets roaring by overhead.  Sounds good to me.  But then I realize that having all these stars around entices fans to get to the track or to watch the race on TV.  With a sigh I say “Oh well, the almighty dollar wins again.”

Whenever the subject comes up it’s for sure folks will agree that our anthem is hard to sing, and most will suggest we’d be better off with a rousing rendition of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America.  Don’t hold your breath kiddies!  Though it has become popular to play it at many sporting events, especially in the National Hockey League, (after all, there is no law that says a national anthem has to be played) the politically correct in this country wouldn’t have an anthem that contained the word “God”.* I don’t know how these same folks handle their greenbacks though, what with “In God We Trust” on all our currency.  Perhaps they rely totally on electronic banking.

This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie’s great song, might come under consideration, especially if we stuck to just the first two verses. “This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York Island” – it covers the whole nation.  But in the original version, after the first few verses it begins to sound like the protest song it is. Guthrie wrote it in 1940 as a rebuttal to Berlin’s God Bless America, which he thought unrealistic.  God Bless America does get my vote though. Anthem lyrics aren’t necessarily realistic, but they should be patriotic, extolling us as we can be our very ‘finest hour’.  Realistic lyrics would have to be changed on a regular basis according to the state of the union, and would read like the front page of a major national newspaper.

There’s a lot to be said for America the Beautiful – but God is in the lyrics there too, wouldn’tcha know.  And it’s a song that’s usually played slowly and with a bit more, shall we say, reverence than our current anthem, making it a poor choice at sporting event s.  Yes, “God” is in the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner: “and this be our motto: ‘In God is our Trust.’”  Rarely do we sing on down to that fourth stanza to note it. At the time our anthem was chosen the movement toward political correctness was not even on the horizon. I wish Congress had stuck with Hail, Columbia. Maybe they can bring that one back.

You can go on line and come up with many differing opinions on the current song and its suggested replacements – I just thought I’d add my own thoughts to the mix.

*They’re after the Pledge of Allegiance too. Read this recent article from the UPI.