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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
I for one think that we should sing the anthem exactly as Francis Scott Key wrote it, note for note.
Wait, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem, not a song? And someone else set it to words?
And the way its sung varies singer to singer (i.e. Whitney Houston vs. Roseanne)? And sometimes there aren't even any words at all?
Sorry, but this is a non-issue. It's a song. If this were the Georgia state song, then there would be something to discuss since that song is officiall "'Georgia On My Mind' as sung by Ray Charles". There is no "official" version of the National Anthem, so if you're mad that someone changed the words, you should also be mad at all those boy scouts who do the exact same thing to make it more entertaining (being a former boy scout myself, I've done the same thing).
If you don't like this version, don't buy it. It's the artists' First Amendment right to change it as they see fit, and I don't see how it's disrespectful at all. If it helps someone understand the lyrics describing a relatively unimportant event in a fairly minor war, then all the better.
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The problem is, then it is no longer the same song.
That is like saying a Weird Al version of a song is the same as the original.
I don't believe that people SHOULDN'T be allowed to change words or parts of the tune (I was in the scouts as well
), but that it shouldn't be considered in any way an equivilent substitute.
A Spanish version of the National Anthem would look more like this (from Google Language Tools, so it's probably butchered to all hell...):
¿O,por ejemplo, puede usted ver, por la luz temprana del amanecer, qué nosotros granizó tan orgulloso en destellar pasado del crepúsculo?
¿De quién amplias rayas y estrellas brillantes, con la lucha peligrosa, sobre los terraplenes miramos, tan gallantly fluíamos?
Y el fulgor rojo de los cohetes, las bombas que estallaban en aire, dio la prueba con la noche que nuestra bandera todavía estaba allí.
¿O,por ejemplo, esa bandera estrella-star-spangled todavía agita sobre la tierra del libre y el hogar del valiente?
In other words, a (more or less) direct translation.