So I watched an unremarkable Opening Day game at Fenway.
By now I am innured to what happens to that most akward anthem every written, the Star Spangled Banner. Babes wreck it in halter tops (what would you expect from Miami?), rock-stars distort it for a few hundred thousand, and sometimes you still get it straight: from Marine bands, little kids, fresh-faced sopranos and the like. Most of this is pretty disgusting, but then our anthem is no great shakes anyway. If it brings tears to your eyes, it must be nostalgia. I mean, compared with the bersaglieri quick-stepping through the operatic Italian anthem, the Marseillaise (which has a residual meaning -- Get your guns out, Citizens!), the delicious harmonies of the Dutch or God Save the Queen, the words and music of our anthem are pretty stinky.
So awful in fact are they that they too have become part of the entertainment industry. They tell the poor guy or girl, go out there and do what you can with it. Well, last night, in the seventh inning, we got an old crock from Aerosmith, fresh from rehab and with a well-scrubbed daughter by his side, doing what he could with its rival, God Bless America, a treacle tart for which I have no appetite whatever. I can fairly report two things about Mr. Tyler's performance: drugs or no, he can neither sing nor speak English. Yekh! Those sprawling nasal vowels, those indeterminate high notes, those worn and abused vocal cords!
In the eighth inning we were treated to one Neil Diamond and his Slick Chestnut, Sweet Caroline. The man wouldn't excel accompanying a palm court orchestra at the Plaza or, for that matter, leaning on a piano somewhere South of Liberace. But he was utterly harmless and amiable: a little like the Sox and their owner.
The crowd seemed entranced; but then who ever said that Sox fans were a discriminating lot?
We are an odd lot, those of us who can remember that a certain solemnity came with our national anthems. Solemnity and respect. However wretched the blasted anthems are -- try the Argentine on for size, which goes on and on! -- I ask you to consider what would happen were any of our bimbos, or Mr. Tyler, to 'sing' the Marseillaise on Bastille Day! Come on, Citizens, reach for your guns!
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Lahti
7 months ago
Professor Botsford:
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I am not a Frenchman, but that scene in Casablanca gets me every time. You know the one:
The Nazis are singing Die Wacht am Rhein at the piano (itself a pretty moving song--"Und tilg' die Schmach mit Feindesblut"!!!), but our Czech resistance leader (himself a Magyar, no?) isn't having it. Captain Renault looks up to see Laszlo smolder, and the latter commands the band:
"Play La Marseillaise. Play it!"
He starts to sing and conduct the band, and in a small act of defiance, Rick's erupts in song--even the Maghrebi guitarist strums along. Eventually the Germans are outsung. Yvonne, the hussy who is now with a Russian barkeep, now with a German soldier, appropriately chimes in during "..mugir ce feroces soldars, ils viennent jusque dans no bras..." with a tear rolling down her cheek.
We get a glimpse of Ilsa, the confused wife of Laszlo and lover of Rick, just before the triumphant chorus:
"Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos batallions! Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!"
Laszlo's managed to make her fall head over heals for him again, and thoroughly inspire this group of refugees, but not without intimidating Maj. Strasser. And to think, it was just an anthem.
Which is all to say that "that our flag was still there" falls very short of "the blood-stained banner has been raised."
Le jour de gloire est vraiment arrive!
Greetings from Washington, DC.
I don't sing anthems as a general rule, but the American interpretation tradition is painful.
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