Candice Glover sings National Anthem for All-Star Game

[Tom22]

I had to stop listening myself. I won't call it terrible... but I guess I did find it irritating.

A song has a journey .. a story .. some flow of successive emotions for a singer even if they don't take the words in a literal way. Even if they don't like the full sentence, they can like individual words ... adjectives, and things of wonder and contemplation like stars or a flag etc.

As beautiful as Candices tones and even perhaps the flow of tones are... I just rarely get "brought in" emotionally, and then once brought in, carried along a ride with an aim and with sights of wonder she'll point at me.

On the other hand... I can listen to Haley, and find my mind filled with wonder of the hardships our predecessors endured in pursuit of dream that should always be reached for. Its inconsequential exactly what the dream is particularly (although it does have freedom in it, and undertones of an individual deciding what is right for themselves to fight for), or what the particular hardships are.. for some it might be the emergence from slavery and jim crow 100's of years after the battle in 1812 . Some might envision hardships there great granparents dealt with in life on the praire or the immigrant experience... and some might picture all of those struggles one or another of us have in our backgrounds which unite us as americans born as people as products of the individual resolve of our ancestors reaching for an ideal (which is a very nuanced difference than the history of people in almost every other country)

I hear that when Beyonce sings the anthem or Haley,.. and there are other very good ones and some mediocre ones and in an ugly way, some self indulgent ones. Candice isn't being self indulgent... I just don't think she feels any grand sweep of history that she has a personal line on and wanted to imbue and convey in her singing.. it was just wandering.. if perhaps lovely in a butterfly sort of way.. passage. We deserve at the very least a "keep your heads up and persevere" tone (thats about what Pia can muster .. she musters that quite competently without bringing us on a journey of hopes and dreams and hardship and varied emotion as the notes roll on). The lack of any sort of sound of "invocation" of the event was irritating after even a few phrases... i might have even prefered the self indulgent versions ... at least they show they care about themselves rather than not showing strong emotions at all (ok.. mayb not the self indulgent ones)

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just went to the beyonce one again and I was crying before she finished the first phrase.. her very deamenor , the pregnant pause in the pursing of the lips the look of reflection in her eyes and the emotional tremble in her voice as if remembering a parent or brother who had passed away..... it just was one of paying respect for those that went before us... flights of grandeur and aspiration later ....

Sing the melody clearly.. but your mind must be sweeping along with images of people in our past and broad concepts of resovlve and value.. and those thoughts in your head will come out in the notes.


(yeah big deal the army core of engineers had her record it before the performance she sung it at one point over the weekend)