Our Proposal For New, Easier To Remember Lyrics For The National Anthem
By Luis Prada
This past Sunday saw the Green Bay Packers come out victorious over the Pittsburg Steelers in Super Bowl 45. But the news that rocked the internet the hardest was of Christina Aguilera’s botched performance of the national anthem during the opening ceremony, as she accidentally sang “What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming,” when she should have sang, “O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.”
While plenty of people are giving Christian shit for forgetting the lyrics and essentially making up her own, I will not. It’s the Super Bowl. She was probably nervous. Besides, that’s, like, a really hard song to sing, guys. There’s all those old timey words in it and junk; and it sounds like it should always be sung by a man with a monocle and a top hat whose name is Wilbur.
With Christina Aguilera’s Super Bowl national anthem failure in mind, I set out to change the lyrics to the national anthem to something a little bit more…let’s say modern. Something that’s easier for all us post-internet age folks to remember.
Here’s the original text to the version of the anthem that is commonly sung at sporting events:
Oh, say! Can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! Does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Kind of tricky, right? Now here’s my updated version:
Hey, it’s dawn so, like, can you look over there and see
If that thing I really liked last night is still there?
Yeah, you know, that thing with the stars and shit. The one that was still looking pretty
Even though there was a bunch of fighting go on near it?
Yeah, dude, it looked soooo pretty with all the fiery explosions and shit going on around it.
All that blazing death really highlights its prettiness at night.
Oh, and hey, can you make sure that thing is still doing its waving thing
Here in America? It just wouldn’t make sense if it were waving in, like, Mexico, or something.
And there you have it. It’s much more lyrical this time around, and, if you ask me, it’s roughly 1,000% percent more patriotic. Above all that, though, it’s more memorable now. No more tricky words that no one uses anymore, like ramparts, or gallantly, or twilight. It’s all, 100% pure modern.
Now no one has an excuse to screw it up.
You’re welcome, America.
COMMENTS
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Posted by Ali Al-Hajamy
Saturday, February 12, 2011 5:05PMActually, people do use the word twilight. A lot of people. Too many people. And it isn’t the good twilight either, the kind that reminds you of romantic times with your partner just after you’ve watched a sunset. This Twilight concerns a shitty series of books and movies about glittery vampires, and a shallow idiot teenager who must decide between necrophilia and bestiality. But you probably already knew that, and just didn’t think that usage counted.
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Posted by Kevin
Saturday, March 2, 2013 2:30PMHaha Twilight. what a joke. these lyrics aren't really good. we should do what Tosh.0 said, make our national anthem an hour long, with a guitar solo and all. What we should do is record a video of someone singing national anthem with the lyrics in the bottom and a dot bouncing around and just play it anytime we have to have someone saying it. That would be a lot easier.
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