should "Lean On Me" replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the US national anthem?

It's been pointed out that the normally sung lyrics are, grammatically, one really long question.

I humbly submit "Is That All There Is?" for consideration. Trump loves it iirc so it might even get some backing

Ok but... "What Is Love?" is also a question

Hmm.... Deee-Lite or Haddaway? Or... MASHUP?????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVgasCtUM4s

DJP: mashup, no question

Altho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=w34vnz_LEX4&feature=emb_logo

(never mind, it was Howard Jones fwiw)

"No One is to Blame" does kinda feel like this country's national anthem rn

coming from a country that doesn't really have a national anthem (Scotland) and living my life without having to ever hear an anthem regularly I really don't enjoy the mania for playing national anthems before sporting events in North America. although they're both fairly innocuous and middling as far as anthems go the one-two of o, Canada and the star spangled banner is quite loathsome.

I only like it if I'm running late to a sporting event as it lets me get to my seat before kickoff

echo the Club Nouveau 'loved it and thought it was the original when I was a kid' sentiment up thread.

folks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIOJdMdS56k

oooooh good one

kurt vonnegut once described the national anthem as "gibberish sprinkled with question marks"

"if america remade itself according to the principles of "lean on me," sure

star spangled banner sucks and we've earned it

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)"

agree, "lean on me" would be a great anthem for a country founded and governed humanely and on humane principles. america ain't that country, never has been, never will be.

"kurt vonnegut once described the national anthem as "gibberish sprinkled with question marks"

― budo jeru"

yeah but that motherfucker was notorious for hating punctuation

Acting like you aren't aware of the existence of

― Get the point? Good, let's dance with nunchaku. (Eric H.)

i know it exists and it's lame

john lennon wrote and recorded an actual anthem and i endorse it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYKoi122dlg

LAY DOWN THE LAW
SHOUT OUT FOR MORE
BREAKOUT AND SHOUT
DAY IN DAY OUT
BREAKOUT

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 26, 2011

yeah but that motherfucker was notorious for hating punctuation

― Kate (rushomancy)

seriously calling a semicolon a "transvestite hermaphrodite" like that's some kinda fucking insult, go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut kurt

I'm kind of surprised to learn that everyone likes "Lean on Me" this much, tbh.

When I was a child I fell by happenstance into a family situation dominated by Unitarian Universalist thinking. There was a widespread joke that there was a UU hymn that went "the universe loves me, this I know, for my intellect tells me so."

I have often wanted, but never succeeded in finding or composing, an unapologetically secular and yet non-militaristic anthem. I would love it if someone could rescue the laudable sentiment from "America the Beautiful" (roughly, "we're not there yet but let's please at least try to get better").

Paul Simon's "American Tune" has some of the appropriate wistful resonance, but none of the aspiration; and in any case the tune is German (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Sacred_Head,_Now_Wounded).

how do we feel about this take

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1QJoUxAKU8&t=1m06s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1QJoUxAKU8&t=1m06s

ok sorry

hoping that was an acoustic cover of Love in an Elevator

no just a guy playing acoustic guitar being crushed by an elevator

hawt

i was trying to link to the movie (?) version of this, but here is the quote:

In "Angels in America," Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, an African-American character named Belize suggests that the difficulty was part of the composer's plan. "The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing," Belize insists. "He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it."

It's a great line but also there are thousands if not millions of people who can actually hit that note as long as they start in the right key, so 🤷🏾‍♂️

i always love when a singer miscalculates their starting note on that song. creates such anticipation - will they be able to reach the high notes? will they scream "fuck" on the microphone?

ok that finally makes me think maybe "the star spangled banner" is good

this is my platonic ideal for a Star-Spangled Banner performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWP8ZJ6674Y

This is pretty spectacular too:

https://youtu.be/8SHnpWohrg0

I find "pomp and circumstance" a bit...pompous and suggest Nelly's "country grammar" as a replacement

one of the few anthems I've heard that approximated Bleeding Gums Murphy's 26 minute version on The Simpsons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf1HMZbTcz0

nothing will EVER beat that hockey game one though.

I love how Kat Deluna breathes about three times in each phrase. my choir teacher would have vivisected her

Also don't sleep on Carl Lewis(!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPhKAQi2hNI

Also don't sleep on Carl Lewis(!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPhKAQi2hNI

Kat Deluna's interpretation of pitch is amazing

I would have said "breathtaking" but she took all of them for me

when i was in college i wrote a column for my university paper arguing that we should replace the national anthem because it was too difficult to sing and the lyrics were militaristic and dumb, and i got an angry two-page letter from the university chief of police telling me i was a bad american.

IRL lols at the "uh oh" on Carl Lewis's

can this be the thread where ILXors all psot their renditions of the SSB

Kat Deluna has some pipes but seems to have pitch control issues, I'll defer to Dang's judgement

Lol xxxp

lol JD

i wish i still had that letter

This one's heartwarming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmQzVQza9Ak

Mo Cheeks was a gentleman during that

This one... is not heartwarming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNEUekIPrmU

In the related vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHnpWohrg0

What are people's thoughts on the Red House Painters version of the Star Spangled Banner? It's the only version of the anthem that I'll actively seek out and listen to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QPS1Bs1lIk