Christina Aguilera’s mistakes while singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl made our stomachs sink.
Something sounded off about her cadence, but we weren’t sure if the words really went in the order we thought.
Internet searches on the national anthem quickly surged by 20-fold, and Americans, having confirmed their suspicions of a botched patriotic song, turned back to their television sets to shake their heads in dismay.
Sure, we had to check the words, but she’s a singer. How could she mess that up?
Cut her some slack. After all, the anthem’s a bizarre song. Originally written as a poem, it was set to the music of a British drinking song and was established as the national anthem in 1931 — rather recently, given its origins during the War of 1812.
Beyond the strange background, spoken language has changed in the 200 years since the poem was written. For example, the line “o’er the land of the free” can be easily misheard as “or the land of the free” because we’re singing words no longer used in regular conversation. The words are confusing, and so is the structure.
In fact, the anthem ends with a question, and, although the answer may be obvious, we’ve always wanted to tack an “indeed” on the end of the song.
Some things won’t change: We’ll still have our flag and pre-football ritual. And we’ll still be making up words to the anthem.
