Lift Every Voice was once called the “Negro National Anthem,” written by James Weldon Johnson to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. It is now called the “Black National Anthem,” and many of us whites have only heard about it in the last five years because – surprise – they only really started teaching Black American history in the last five to ten years. Who had heard of “Juneteenth”? Be honest. I hadn’t until Trump planned his speech for that day.
So Lift Every Voice, the Black National Anthem, was sung at America’s premiere sporting event, a billion-dollar enterprise (conservatively), in which well over 50% of the players are Black Americans. Sounds respectful and wonderful at best and, at absolute worst, harmless. (And that is the worst).
Lift every voice and sing,
’Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.
How deeply offensive! It actually sounds more American than the Star Spangled Banner, which is a shitty national anthem. It’s about one battle, a flag still up, it’s hard to sing, and it captures nothing about the country. America the Beautiful should be the national anthem, and everyone knows it. (Feel free to disagree).
For someone to have a problem with Lift Every Voice being sung before the Super Bowl, one has to hate everything “Black.” In other words, you refuse to be “woke,” preferring to hate everything black or even diverse. Kari Lake, the woman who proudly voted for Obama, got so caught up in a cult that she couldn’t deal with the second anthem sung. She could not even stand up and just recognize it as “harmless,” at absolute worst.
Kari could do worse:
Kari Lake Sits For The Black National Anthem
Do You Agree That There Is Only One National Anthem 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/dEWQGuGkEe
— Trumps Nephew (@ForgiatoBlow47) February 13, 2023
To make it that much worse, “Good for Kari” is now trending on Elon’s new version of Twitter.
But not everyone believes Kari is “good” for showing her disdain.
Just say you’re racist @KariLake @mtgreenee @laurenboebert pic.twitter.com/fZ1Zg9cSkU
— DutchessPrim💙 (@dutchessprim) February 13, 2023
Remember Kari Lake? The failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate??
Yesterday she reminded the world of exactly who she is by refusing to stand during the performance of the Black National Anthem.She's just a hateful lonely old woman. pic.twitter.com/hj9UZFGZsg
— MP Arizona☀️🏳️🌈💙🌵🐕🐕🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 (@AzPetrich) February 13, 2023
She is very young, 50 or so. I am tired of hearing that every post-menopausal woman is “old.” As far as I’m concerned, women reach peak beauty at 50.
kari lake remaining seated during the singing of the Black national anthem does not bother me because i've seen what she stands for.
— Covie (@covie_93) February 13, 2023
Thank you @JRubinBlogger. What galls me is hearing Kari Lake & others state that they “oppose a Black national anthem.” Like it’s up for a vote. It’s not.There is a Black National Anthem.Has been for over a century. Will continue to be. Not asking. https://t.co/cCbUt83Ntj
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@SIfill_) February 13, 2023
Yes. GOP fighting the Black National Anthem is about control. Indeed the entire “anti-woke” thing is about fighting for control.
****
[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: MUCH LEFT ADO
Fuck that hairdo.
Ah yes – Francis Key’s poem about one of the very few US victories (when a stone fort held off British wooden ships bombarding it) in the War of 1812 (the one where the White House was burnt to the ground) and was set to the music of an English song “To Anacreon in Heaven”
Oh and it didn’t become the national anthem until 1931
And can’t be sung with the original words in today’s world, less than a century after being adopted.
I have always heard “To Anacreon in Heaven” described, more specifically, as “an old English drinking song”. Perhaps it takes more than a few to make the tune sound good?
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Anacreontic_Song
Being from Illinois I learned about Juneteenth but only in passing. As for Lift Every Voice, I learned about it from reading The Boys of Summer, specifically the chapter about Joe Black – the first Black pitcher to win a World Series Game. HE didn’t know about it until he attended Morgan State for college. Anyway, conservatives can freak the hell out all they want. The words are beautiful and inspiring. I disagree about the words to our National Anthem as that battle was key, and that war was what gave us an identity as a nation AND a true player on the world stage. But I agree that despite the “God shed his grace on thee” line America the Beautiful should be our national anthem. Which is why it’s often been sung at the Super Bowl prior to the National Anthem. But, here’s my inner old and cranky fart coming out I fucking can’t STAND performers who don’t simply sing it “straight.” The words, as I said matter because the describe a significant night in our nation’s history. One that altered the course of the war and sent us on our way to becoming a strong, if flawed nation. Singers who want to make the National Anthem about themselves and their “artistry” just flat-out piss me off. As did the dude who sang it yesterday. It wasn’t beautiful to me. I’ve proudly stood at attention both in uniform and out during our national anthem. I even felt like in their own way those who knelt during it were still showing respect, while calling attention to how far we still have to go to fulfill our promise.
” But, here’s my inner old and cranky fart coming out I fucking can’t STAND performers who don’t simply sing it “straight.”
Well, your opinion and all that BUT, personally, I loathe the National Anthem. It’s a song about a freaking piece of cloth that has NOTHING to do with this country or its people.
Having said that, give a listen to versions performed by José Feliciano, Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye and give your “inner old and cranky fart” notion a rethink. Feliciano’s career was almost tanked based on his (at the time) “controversial” performance during the 1968 World Series which ignored the “standard” interpretation and replaced it with his own voice and style. Hendrix’s version, of course, was pretty much an instrumental performed at Woodstock the next summer (and given that event’s “counterculture” legacy, the performance could be seen as ironic but also a reminder the song supposedly represents everyone in the country). As for Gaye, he actually performed the Anthem several times in his career but, if you look at his performances, they changed over the years. His first “professional” (if you will) was in the 1968 World Series (I think the night before Feliciano’s version) and it was pretty much a standard straightforward run-of-the-mill take. In 1974, he performed it before a regular NFL game and, this time, he gave it a little more “soul” but his absolutely most impressive was in 1983 before an NBA All-Stars game when he backed the song with a track that was not far removed from his then-current hit, “Sexual Healing” (it wasn’t the same tune but the sound was so close a lot of people thought he sang the SSB lyrics to the “Sexual Healing” melody).
I’ll be the first to say our country has never lived up to the ideals of freedom and equality laid forth in our founding documents. We have rather spectacular failures in our history. However, bit by bit we’ve made progress, albeit sometimes with setbacks. Your statement that our flag has “nothing” to do with our history is just flat out wrong. The stars, stripes and colors have represented specific things from the beginning. And I’d suggest you need to read up more on the War of 1812 than you have. That flag means something. It’s a symbol not just here but around the world. I won’t apologize for being supportive of or displaying it, any more than I will decry those who burn it. As Michael Douglas’ character in the movie says the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag, it’s also a person’s right to burn that flag in protest. In THIS country people can do that. In many countries they’d be executed on the spot!
That flag you’re so dismissive of inspired people like my father, who was lucky to survive the wounds he suffered in WWII, and which he kept hidden for the rest of his life. It draped his casket. Someday I’ll have a flag of my own when I die. You insult me and countless millions who have served this country and not just in uniform. Literally millions have been wounded and even died. Again, our country has fucked up in really major ways in our history but for all that we’ve been more of a force for freedom and democracy than any other. i just wish we were a lot closer to our founding ideals of freedom than we actually are, And that we weren’t going through one of those setback periods I referred to. My heart was broken when I heard the words President-Elect Donald Trump and it will never fully heal. But that flag, that piece of cloth you apparently consider a worthless rag is anything but. I was literally willing when I was younger to defend it to the death. Such was my love for my country despite its flaws. Can you say the same?
And I was willing to fight for our ideals again with an American flag patch on my shoulder in Ukraine where I guarantee you Ukrainians would have LOVED seeing it. I literally tried to sign up given my military specialty (infantry with a specialty in anti-tank warfare) but was turned down. I’m 65 now with a variety of health conditions. But I don’t have a wife nor did I ever have kids so getting killed representing my country and wearing that flag you are so dismissive of was something I was okay with. I guess like Trump you think I’m a sucker of a fool. If so go to hell. But learn your damned history.
So sorry you didn’t make the cut, dude. Props for trying.
No-one wants to talk to you,
when you’re old and in the way.
The war that was started by the US when they thought that Canada belonged to them so they invaded (and got their ass kicked)?
AMEN to your last comment.
As for preferring an “unmodified” performance of the Anthem, here are (IMHO) the best Super Bowl performances:
Kelly Clarkson, 2012
Cher, 1999
Demi Lovato, 2020
Pink, 2018
Billy Joel’s a capella version from 1989 – he sounded a bit flat when in his. 2007 piano-accompanied version.
The (Dixie) Chicks, 2003 – the Anthem in three part harmony is something else!
Luther Vandross, 1997
and the quintessential performance, by Whitney Houston in 1991.
I just finished watching them all on YouTube.
I found Chris Stapleton’s rendition of the anthem very moving. It shows you don’t have to have all that sturm und drung, the over-the-top accompaniment and vocalizing that so often goes with the performance in order to have a thought-provoking experience. Sorry you were more into your old fart crankism than having an open mind to a new experience. Chris did a great job on a difficult song. Although I’m not a country music fan, I’ve enjoyed his music.
Yes, Lake is sitting on her worthless ass during the Black National Anthem which is pretty disrespectful. That said, the twat with her face glued to her phone, twittering, texting, whatever the fuck she is doing, isn’t any better.
Born and raised Unitarian, Lift every voice was in our hymnal from at least as long as I can remember. I get it is the Black National Anthem, but I didn’t recognize it as that for many years, it was a hymn we sung in church. An inspirational one at that. I loved the performance at the Superbowl.
I am not sure if I get these people who sit for an inspirational song, but I guess I would sit through deustcheland uber alles and maybe sing la marseillaise over the Nazis in Ricks cafe.
When my babies were young and were cranky and wouldn’t go to sleep I would sing them the star spangled banner, not as anything inspirational, but it was a song I knew all of the lyrics too, and seemed to settle them even with my tone deaf rendering.
I don’t see kneeling as offensive during the anthem. In fact the veteran (Nate Boyer) advising Colin Koepernick recognized kneeling as respectful. You recognize the importance of the event but in a different way. Disrespect for the anthem or any song is sitting and checking your twitter feed.
My father was a veteran, peace time, my grandfather volunteered for WWI but never got out of Kansas, he did get his picture taken in his uniform. My uncles met in the Pacific, they were navy sailors never got close to combat. My cousins must have gotten deferments during Vietnam.
My father flew the flag on all the holidays. I am ambivalent. I never served (color blind), not happy through all the bush years with fake patriotism. I don’t want to pretend patriotism by flying a flag I never served under.
Anyone who believes that the Star Spangled Banner is a fit national anthem hasn’t read or heard anything beyond the first verse. It’s a horrid song.
To be sure not all of our wars and military interventions have been “just” as the word goes. I came of age during Vietnam for example. And more recently of course we have the appalling war of choice in Iraq (which spread) initiated by Baby Bush and his pals. But sometimes war is the dubious best choice of a shitty set of options. We had the Revolutionary War. Then the War of 1812 where the British tried to smash what was still referred to derisively both there and in other countries as “The Grand Experiment.” The Civil War was fought to preserve our Union and end slavery, our Original (and huge) sin. (not that those who supported slavery have been truly defeated) World Wars I and especially TT. The Korean War which had McCarthur not gotten carried away with his ego and “genius” would have left a mostly united Korea which when you think about it would have deleted a major problem we and that part of the world now face. The first Gulf War. And now what’s in effect a proxy war in Ukraine, one in which I might add Americans have been serving in, albeit not as members of our armed forces but as civilian volunteers. Not to mention so many forgotten troops that have deployed to control events, such as units that Trump pulled out and allowed countries like Syria and even our “ally” Turkey to partner with Russia to devastate swaths of land and create unspeakable suffering and add to the crisis of refugees in that part of the world.
Like most who have served I’ll take “jaw jaw jaw” (diplomacy) over war whenever possible. But as I said, sometimes the proverbial “best bad option” is to fight. To stand up and risk life and limb to stop some of the worst possible things from happening to masses of people, and/or to contain dictators who are intent on expanding their power.
In that spirit, perhaps you might reconsider the final stanza:
Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Yeah. Really horrible shit eh? Granted, the third stanza falls flat, and the second isn’t what I’d call great, but I don’t dismiss the poem or that it became our Anthem out of hand either. And we are hardly the only country including major one with a National Anthem that references war. France for example. Le Marseillaise is a rousing tune to be sure. But if you speak French or read a translation it’s kinda dark and bloody. Have you ever read a translation? Or, say watching Casablanca for example thought “wow!”
Again, I’d take America the Beautiful as our National Anthem any day of the week. But we could do worse than the one we have.
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/n/nationalanthemlyrics/usanationalanthemlyrics.html
True – you could have had ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ with a dreary tune pinched from the Brit ‘God Save the King’ which, in turn, was pinched from the Prussian ‘Heil Dir im Siegeskranz’ (the German anthem up until 1918)
Maybe we should start singing The Turning Away by Pink Floyd. That’s where we are now. I hear you marine. My five uncles were in Ww2. My dad a Korean war vet. My other uncle an original green beret wounded 3x in Vietnam. I also had cousins there who came back all fucked up. I’m a navy vet. Hell I’m as critical as anyone on the history of America, but I also have some sense of the sacrifices made on Omaha Beach. 99% of our citizens haven’t gone through boot camp or had to stand watch. They think they know our history. I disagree. They know it like a story out of a book. I’m sure when you visit Arlington National Cemetery, or the tomb of the unknown solider, the TWO places in DC my dad made sure we went to, you see it through the eyes of a solider. They don’t. Maybe we should stop singing like fools until we live up to the ideals we bray about to the world.
I.would vote for “This Land is Your Land” myself. Emphasizes unity and diversity and inclusive th and completely lacks any mention of religion or deity, always a plus,and simple and easy to sing.
“On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed an act establishing an official flag for the new nation. The resolution stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” On Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman officially declared June 14 as Flag Day.
The history of our flag is as fascinating as that of the American Republic itself. It has survived battles, inspired songs and evolved in response to the growth of the country it represents. The following is a collection of interesting facts and customs about the American flag and how it is to be displayed:”