O, Say Can You...Sing???

Okay, by now virtually everyone has heard about Christina Aquilera's guffaw with the national anthem at Sunday's Super Bowl. I don't sing, but I do play a mean radio. I can hold a tune in the car quite easily, thank you very much. But, please, these are professional singers performing a song that leaves little room for compromise when you're on the world's largest stage. First of all, I have a real problem with the national anthem being all 'juiced up' and sung in different ways. Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics and I think he had a tune in mind when he penned the song in the heat of battle. Why does it have to take on a different personality with different singers? Why can't it just be sung the way it was written to be sung...and that would include ALL the words and verses? The 12-year-old phenom from America's Got Talent got it right at the outdoor hockey match in Pittsburgh on New Year's Day so one would think someone as famous as CA could belt out the anthem with no problem. Heck, I know of three young, very talented, ladies at Edison High School who could have handled the Super Bowl assignment with no problem. They sing the anthem all the time at Edison volleyball and basketball events. No, I'm not comparing Edison sporting events to the Super Bowl, but the song remains the same. I'm sure these three talented singers would have gladly accepted the challenge to sing on the Fox network Sunday night. But answer me this, if you can. The Super Bowl was being played in Texas--home of some awesome musical talent, some talent, in fact, that hasn't even really been discovered yet. Why not showcase Texas music by letting, say, the Randy Rogers Band play the national anthem? Heck, why not let them do the halftime show? Then maybe we wouldn't have had to watch people (?) in illuminated suits with boxes on their heads prancing around on stage. Although that did give us a quick minute to get a sandwich and settle in for the second half of ...commercials!