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If you are going to sing the National Anthem at an event, the faster the better
Why...
Do people insist on singing National Anthems at major events at full vibrato and wringing out every note for eternity? I understand the recently deceased Aretha Franklin set the bar in the USA at a staggering 4 minutes 55 seconds at a football game on Thanksgiving 2016. That’s longer than it took a surgeon in the 1550’s in Malta to whip out a kidney stone AND amputate a leg! The normal time for the US ditty is one minute 40 seconds. I mean, I’m all for putting your hand over your heart and showing some national pride but 5 minutes before you get to ‘From sea to shining sea…’!? In winter?
...and another thing
If I hired a celeb to sing for me at a national event, he or she would be given a fixed time to rattle out ‘God Save the Queen’. No acapellas, no orchestra, no delays.
I would add a rider into their contract that for every second over the allotted time they lose 1% of their fee and every second under they get a 2% bonus.
It’s not as if a National Anthem is a new tune and we’d all like time to hear it. I wonder how many times a President listens to ‘Hail to the Chief’ during four years in office? No doubt a fraction of the mind-numbing times Queen Elizabeth has heard ‘God Save the Queen’ during her 67 years as Monarch. She must want to behead the composer.
...and another thing
Spain have cracked this problem by having a National Anthem with no words.
Great for events, where most people are so drunk, they forget the lyrics and hum along aimlessly anyway.
However, lack of inspiring words as to why your country is better than others may not be so good for ‘stiffening the sinews and summoning up the blood’ before battle when National Anthems are normally sung.
This might help explain Spain’s recent piss poor military history as humming a tune charging at the enemy is not going to transform you into a pumped-up fighting machine.
We all know the effect ‘Deutschland Deutschland Uber alles’ (Germany Germany above everyone else) had on our Teutonic cousins in 1939.
...and another thing
Frankly with the rise of federalism in Europe I am quite surprised some Eurocrat has not banned individual country National Anthems and made us all warble the official European Anthem, the Schiller poem ‘Ode to Joy’ along to Ludwig Van Beethoven’s score.
Maybe I am a touch paranoid, but do I detect one country prevalence here instead of representation of all member states?
At least someone was thinking. Everything is out of copyright so no royalties.
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