this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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someone has to say i say it, so here goes: it's your anthem that sucks. i don't know who this woman is but i don't care. seriously it is so ass. and incredibly racist. ditch it for a better one. pick something people can sing. it's not normal that you sing this anthem since childhood and at every event but still out of all professional singers who attempt to sing it only Whitney Houston and like two more people could do it.
It does suck. The tune is adapted from a song praising wine. Being drunk when singing it seems appropriate.
I'm missing the racism aspect, though, how so?
It has four verses, even though typically only the first verse is performed. The full version has these lyrics:
I don't really read that as condoning slavery, as much as acknowledging that slaves fought and died in the war?
how does that work with "the terror of flight"?
the entire songs context is around the Battle of Baltimore which included 25 hours of naval bombardment. from the perspective of the ships where it was witnessed and given the volume of shells fired they assumed everyone would be dead.
They're running from the British troops.
that's still not good. why does it only talk about slaves and hirelings then?
Because it talks about other people in other places. Also, in context it could be referring to the British forces themselves. It had already been used as a rhetorical device for that after the revolutionary war.
Really though the idea that he would take a break in a poem about the war of 1812 and specifically the bombardment of Fort McHenry to dunk on slaves is just weird too. It doesn't fit.
Here's the complete extra stanzas.
i didn't say it doesn't talk about others anywhere. I'm talking in context of terror of flight and gloom of grave. how can anyone not see the contrast between how freemen and slaves are mentioned here I don't understand. it's clear why it says freemen stand for their loved home and slaves shall have no refuge. really weird seeing this shit being defended.
To be clear: your interpretation of it is not being defended. People are arguing instead that you've interpreted it wrong -- i.e. that the 'hirelings and slaves' are the British soldiers, being likened to mercenaries (hirelings) and pointing out that they often served unwillingly after being press-ganged (slaves).
I have no skin in the game, but you seem to be taking others' statements in pretty bad faith.
it's cope, post hoc rationalization. the person who wrote the poem was a slave owner who believed black people to be an inferior race. it was a threat to black slaves not to flee or fight for the British side (i wonder why they would ever do that).
It was a poem about the bombardment of a fort at the subsequent repulsion of the British forces in the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. It was literally titled "Defence of Fort M'Henry" before it was used as the lyrics to the national anthem.
The context of the poem doesn't jibe with it being about African slaves.
We have lots of bullshit revisionist history that tries to whitewash racism, but this ain't it.
This was you right?
Did you read any of what I wrote?
Ah, thought it might be something like that. Pretty much nobody knows any stanzas past the first exist, so it's a bit silly to criticize it for that. It sucks just fine without it.
i don't understand your point. it's one thing to say you can't say people are racist for liking it, because they wouldn't know the full lyrics which, i didn't say anyway... but it's silly to criticize a song for being racist just because people stop singing it before it gets really bad? bit of a weird take.
It's silly to use a stanza that is literally never sung as criticism for why it sucks as a national anthem. As a reason for why the whole song as a general concept sucks, sure.
I mean America Fuck Yeah! is right there and ready to go!
Wait, that's not the American anthem?!?
Whiteley Houston's version was actually prerecorded, but she did sing it live when recorded in 1 take
Lady Gaga also did a very good version
Agree that with this girl in the OP, that the song (which is challenging) was just out of her range, plus she's a "cursive" singer like that girl in The Chainsmokers or Ellie Goulding, which is not a very good technique for singing IF you want range, flexibility, versatility, or even longevity in your voice. In general she's a decent, consistent singer (I've seen many videos of her performing live since this) as long as she's within her range. I think she just lacks the skill for that song specifically.
That's kind of the point, it's an achievement to be able to sing it well.
it's a national anthem dude not a tiktok challenge
TikTok challenges aren't skilled singing achievements, they're fun activities to do with friends.
Yes, be sure to never excel or try hard, lest someone on Lemmy accuses you of doing something from TikTok
this literally has nothing to do with what I said. I said the notion of having the "point" of a national anthem be too hard for anyone but the select few be able to do it is ridiculous. it's not an achievement; it's a rally.
the national anthem should be sung by the people. in general.
that goes double for the US , considering the obsession this country has with making everyone sing it all the fucking time for any mundane reason.
You can't deny that an anthem celebrating individual achievement matches way better with the American ethos than a song that can easily be sung by anyone. Not that I'm a fan of that ethos, but yeah the anthem is not out of character at all.
The anthem isn't really treated like a "rally", people stand with their hand over their heart and watch a skilled singer sing it.
It's pretty much only sung at the beginning of professional sports games. Maybe government ceremonies, idk.
my dude, not considering patriotism (such as it is), lyrical meaning and what-not, the US Anthem is a decent piece of music, and I would rank it top tier as far as national anthems go. You've not heard a crappy national anthem until you've heard Taiwan's national anthem, and I am about as patriotic as Taiwanese gets. (again just talking about the music itself and not lyrical content, Taiwan's national anthem is very problematic)
we disagree on both, lol. just as a piece of music, maybe it's the performance in the video but that sounded pretty badass. this could easily be the climax soundtrack in an epic movie.
lmao, i guess familiarity breeds contempt. because of the dispute with china, taiwan doesn't play its national anthem at international events such as the olympics when one of their athletes win. instead, they play the flag anthem, which I MUCH prefer (again, just as a piece of music). I would be very happy if they adapted the flag anthem as the new national anthem.
i get why you like this more, it's more of a marching song like most anthems. me i don't really think a national anthem should necessarily be a march. too militaristic. why not have something culturally appropriate and more importantly unique? i like that about the actual anthem. (again, didn't look at the lyrics at all)