Switched on Pop - Star Spangled

Episode Date: January 28, 2015

Did you know the melody to the Star Spangled Banner was once a British drinking song? In preparation for the Super Bowl, we uncover how the national anthem has been co-opted and reinterpreted by mega pop-stars. Our understanding of how this song sounds has been shaped by sporting events and the spin pop artists put on it has altered our conception of the national song. FEATURING Beyoncé, Jose Feliciano, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston – The Star Spangled Banner Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Finlandia, Op. 26 Ensemble Almageste – La Mantovana Songs from the the Star Spangled Music Foundation Sura Yako – Sauti Sol  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Americans go out by a brand new flat screen television so they can watch the big game on the big screen. The Super Bowl is coming up. And of course, we know what the Super Bowl is really all about, right, Nate? It's all about nachos. Potato skins. Hot wings. Copious beer, friends.

Copious beer and friends. Am I missing anything? Well, I think we also watched the Super Bowl to watch the ads. Bud. Why? Sir. And of course, there's the football. But such an underappreciated part of the Super Bowl.

is the music. And we're not talking about the halftime show. Of course, that's well televised. But we're talking about the theme songs of our biggest national sporting event. Our favorite part of the Super Bowl is the national anthem. Because the way that it's sung every year says a lot about the moment that we live in right now. And on today's episode, we're going to show you how the national anthem has been co-opted by today's biggest pop stars. And gentlemen, your attention please.

Please rise and join in the scene. of our national anthem. I'm Nate Sloan. And I'm Charlie Harding. And this is Switched on Pop, the show that explores the art and science of pop music. So we're going to hear it again, but we've all heard it, you know, a thousand times. Every sporting event you go to, you hear the national anthem. But I doubt that many Americans have heard the original rendition.

No. And the original is, in fact, a drinking. song. Which actually makes sense for sporting events, right? Yeah, no, totally. The original melody that Francis Scott Key rewrote the lyric to fit. Right. He wrote this, what we now know is the Star-Spangled Banner to fit this melody called Anacreon in Heaven. I didn't know that it was actually a drinking song from the Anacriontic Society. There you go. An 18th Century gentleman's club of amateur musicians in London. And this is their song, Anacreon in Heaven.

A Nacreon in heaven where he sat in Fulke, a few songs of harmony sent a petition. And besides I'll instruct you like me to infine from a... So as you can see, this is a song that a group of men, would get together and sing as they drank. Wouldn't it be great if you would walk into the bars today and people are singing drinking songs just like that? Charlie, that's all I want. Life's mission. All I want is to just have a pint and sing some dirty songs with my bros, you know?

A little harmony going. So then how in the world did this song go from being just a dumb drinking song to popular enough that it made? it into the national anthem. It's a great question. So it's hard to trace precisely, but this was a melody that was in the air in a big way. So basically this song was, it was in the national ear in many ways the drinking songs before recorded music were pop songs. Totally.

And this one seems to especially have latched onto people's imagination to the point that Francis Scott Key writing this poem in the wake of his experience in the war of 1812. Right. Was like, I'm going to set this to anachryon in heaven. Like that's, and then people, yeah. Because people know it. Like, you don't have to learn a new song. And then perhaps unintentionally, his rendition of the song takes off and becomes one of our

most patriotic anthems. Yeah. This trend is not unique to the United States. Many national anthems are co-opted songs, right? Yeah, totally. You have Finland, one of their biggest national songs, Finlandia, written by the composer Sibelius. Or the Israeli national anthem Hatikva, if you go back, actually stretches to Italian songs of the 16th century. That's what they were drawing on.

So, yeah, so anthems can have weird and complex histories that belie their function as sort of musical glue to hold a nation together. We hear the national anthem, and of course it was written after the war of 1812. When we hear this, it feels like it's older than time itself, but really it, these anthems came about in the time of nationalism. And what really surprised me was that our official national anthem is only 36 years older than the Super Bowl itself, which came about in 1967. Wait, talk me through that. So the Star Spangled Banner was a popular song, much like other patriotic songs at the time. America the Beautiful, my country, Tis of the and so on. And then there came

a time around the turn of the 20th century when other countries are adopting national anthems, and it makes sense that the United States needs one. Right. Get this. It's not until 1931 when President Hoover signs a congressional resolution saying that the Star-Spangled Banner

is our official anthem. So all these songs were jockeying for the top slot, but the Star-Spangled banner won out in the end. Yeah, and of course Isn't it ridiculous that the Star Spangled Banner was originally a British drinking song? And the other contestant was My Country Tiz of The, which is actually just words superimposed upon the melody to God Save the Queen, the British National Anthem. And curious about how the national anthem sounds to one of its originators, Nate and I consulted Facebook and found a friend with a great personal story and insight into the translation of our Star Spangled Banner. So today we're joined by Ben Wallace, head of marketing at Depict, a digital art company.

Hi guys, how's it going? Great. Thanks for joining us. Nice to be here. Ben, where did you sing the national anthem? So I was in Chicago, middle of summer, and me and my friend were visiting at a Cubs game. We buy the tickets. Everyone tells us to sit in the bleachers because that's where the hardcore fans are. And so we sit out.

The game starts, always for the national anthem. And so I'm not American, obviously. Yeah. And my concept of national anthems is like quite dull plodding marches, like the British one. How does the British one go? God save our gracious queen. It goes on. I'm not going to do any one in that.

That was beautiful. But thank you. It's plodding and slow and it's not that much fun. Yeah. So we're there and we're sitting. We're having a good time. We're both drinking beers and sitting up in the bleachers. And we stand, but we're not going to sing.

and suddenly we realized that the guy next to us is a Cubs super fan. He's not wearing anything on his top. He's got like a big C painted on him. He's like big, bold guy with two huge gloves. And he just turns to us and obviously he doesn't know that British. It's like, sitting. We kind of look up at him. And this guy, we didn't know at the time, but within the Cubs games, he's like a well-known superfan who goes to all the games.

So not only is like everyone looking at and cheering this guy on who's right next to us. is standing there, but he's also on the Jumbotron whilst this is happening. Oh my gosh. So we're like, yeah, so we're, it's kind of like this huge guy with these two huge gloves on. Us to the left of him, it's like one of the most British moments for us because suddenly we're caught in this situation where we, we don't want to offend the guy. Also, probably the whole stadium is looking at us at this point. And like, I look at the big Jumbotron thing and I look at him.

And then so we just make the call and we stand up and we start singing, but obviously we don't really know the lyrics. Oh my God. So the next like 20 seconds are this awkward like stand up as this guy. really aggressively put his arm around us. They're kind of like pretending to be friends, but also I'm going to kill you. As we like mumble through and kind of just follow his latest thing that anthem.

Wow. Well done. I was pretty nervous. Yeah, I was pretty sure that at the end we were going to get being up by a bunch of people around us. But, you know, in fact, I think we did a good job and they were very supportive. We told them afterwards that we were actually not from here. And we got a lot of love.

Well, Ben, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us. Absolutely. Yeah. Have fun, guys. Another thing that's fascinating about the Star-Spangled Banner, in addition to the fact that it was originally a British drinking song, is that this song of all the contenders that we mentioned before, My Country Tiss of the, God Bless America, America the Beautiful,

this song is lyrically the most insane one. Tell me more. Well, I mean, it's just like the language of it is so intense and archaic. Right. And the diction is like so convoluted in Byzantine. Give me some words. Well, like spangled, for one. It's a pretty funny word that does not often come up in conversation otherwise.

Not colloquially. Or so gallantly streaming. Did I tell you how gallantly you are looking tonight? Thanks, man. That means a lot to me. Um, your, your ramparts are, I've been watching them. Whoa. Whoa.

And they are, they are pretty spangled, if you know what I mean? Do I have to tell my wife about this? No, because between you and me. So, and just this language like, who's brought stripes and bright stars to the perilous fight or the ramparts we watch were so gallantly streaming like, whoa, what a mouthful compared to God bless America land that I love, you know? Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey.

Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agencies. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period?

I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want order at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Not only are these words unfamiliar today, many of them are almost impossible to sing, right?

This song has a huge range. You have to be an amazing singer. to be able to sing the national anthem. And I wonder if that's why we require putting someone out in front of the entire stadium at the Super Bowl to sing it because your lay singer can't actually get through. What is the gap of this song? Good question. So we start the lowest note of the song is the third note in the song.

So that's the lowest note. And then immediately after that, we ascend to an octave above that. Say, can you see? So that's already a big jump. So we've gone from one octave. Right away. Right. But that's not the end because by the time we get to

and the Rockets Red Glare, so we've gone from here to here. And then we go, And the Rockets Red Glare. So we go, it's an octave and a fifth. Right. So altogether from this note, and then I'll walk up the scale.

Yeah, you have to be a really good singer to do this. to do this song any justice. Otherwise, you get, I mean, I've seen some hysterical attempts. I mean, not that I ever played sports myself, but my brother did, and I would go to his basketball games. So we've established that this song is not easy to sing, that it requires a professional. You've got to throw someone out on a stage to be able to lead us in this very challenging song. and yet at some point, the song started to evolve. Probably as a result of the fact that the only people who could sing it were professional singers.

They made it even harder for us. Yeah. The national anthem, as Francis Scott Key knew it, has been totally transformed by the pop musicians who have been interpreting it for the last 50 years. Not without controversy. as is evidenced by the first time that someone really took liberties with the national anthem. And I think that was in 1968 when Jose Feliciano played it on acoustic guitar before a baseball game. And you play this now and it sounds like the most beautiful rendition. It's hard-breaking.

But at the moment, people freaked out. It was a national controversy. And you think about the moment in which this is happening, 1968, this is the intrusion of counterculture into mainstream culture. And folk music at this time, even though today sounds innocuous, was very political. Yeah, he's like Woody guthrifying the national anthem right under people's noses. So we had the 1960s counterculture version of the national anthem, and it continued to evolve as pop musicians. took it into their own genres. Totally.

Right. So give me some history, Nate. What else we got? So then the next seminal moment in national anthem reinterpretation is Marvin Gay's take of it at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game in full, in sunglasses, indoors, which only a few people, including Marvin Gay, could pull off. Sexy, slick backing track with like, you know, one of the first drum machines ever probably, and he's just like crooning the national anthem as though we're, let's get it on.

Whoa, I mean, this is like, this is a serious moment in American musical history. He's hitting on the nation. He's literally seducing America. But then probably the most influential performance of this song in recent memory is Whitney Houston at the 1991, Super Bowl, which is probably worth listening to in its entirety.

And just to set the scene, I highly recommend you watch this yourself at home. This is a big event. Yeah, let's take a lesson to it. So the first thing we hear are drums. Right. Very militaristic. Instantly, something is different here from anachryon in heaven. We're not in the right time signature.

No, because the original is in Walt's time or three, four, and this is in four. Right. And you're getting these chords that you don't usually hear. You once said this sounds like Gershwin, and I totally agree. Now it sounds like John Williams. Yeah. It's a great soundtrack. So there was a couple of things we heard going on that were some real innovations.

The thorough popification of the national anthem. The big one that we addressed right at the onset is this song is now in 44 rather than 3.4. Right, which is a much more common time signature. Yeah. And pretty much all of popular music. Totally. And as a singer gives you more time to throw in ad libs and play with the melody. Right, exactly.

Because instead of having one, two, three notes, on the third note, she can just pull that note out and do all these crazy. Oh my God. Was that, Whitney? Wait, Whitney. The ghost of Whitney is in my apartment. Was that? That was crazy. That was, oh, my God.

Wow. So we changed the meter. We're changing some of the harmony. What does this mean about that moment in history? Why is this happening? As we said, the Gulf War has just started. So people are feeling particularly patriotic at this moment. And that four-four time is very militaristic as well, such as popular music, it's also military, that drums that you mentioned at the start.

Right. The cracking snare drums and this four-four pulse. That captures the national feeling. Now, in the wake of Whitney has become somewhat of a tradition. And we've seen this tradition carried on recently in a great homage to Whitney Houston. Yes. Beyonce singing the national anthem at the 2012 inauguration. Yeah.

Now, this performance, of course, was riddled with controversy. Supposedly, she had to lip sync because it's really cold. Why did they do the inauguration outdoors in January in Washington, D.C.? Not the best weather. Oh, yeah. And didn't Yo-Yo Ma also like Airbo the cello? Surely, I bet his cello exploded in the cold weather. I mean, you're not supposed to take instruments or vocal cords out into the cold.

Even though it was pre-taped, it was a stunning performance. Oh, yeah. And to me, this performance, even though it's pretty reined in for Beyonce, represents the next level of national anthem poppification from Whitney. Because in some way, while she hues to the basic Whitney model of the national anthem, she adds in even more reharmonizations, and she adds even more vocal ornamentation and really basically puts even more R&B and soul into the national anthem than Whitney did.

So we start off simple, but we hear right away those drums, those military drums, just like the Whitney Houston version. And then here we have that reharmonization, new chords introduced, and of course we have the four four time. But what's so great about Beyonce's rendition is that she takes the Whitney Houston and then changes back to the original meter in three four time. One two, three. It gives me chills every single time I hear it. And on top of that, she's adding in all these vocal of ad lips. Right. Many listeners heard this and said, that is a beautiful rendition of a very traditional song.

Yeah. And what you're not hearing is the actual very recent history of, the performance that only just a little over a decade ago that that four four time, the militaristic style. Yes. All of that has been recently introduced. Yeah. These incredibly inventive reharmonizations of the original chords.

Exactly. This is new. And so our pop stars, here they are, asserting their artistry into our national song. Yeah. Yes. And that's right. So who says pop music doesn't define America? I mean, it literally, it literally does.

They're literally defining America through the national anthem. And what we also see is that we need to pay attention to our national anthem. Yes, tune in next Sunday and see what Edina Menzel does to the national anthem because we might be, there might be a new moment dawning, a new anthem style. There are little secrets hidden about our national mood. And who knows, maybe we'll even see just a little bit. of controversy, and I think we should use the words from the

artists who probably had the most controversial and famous version of the national anthem. Here's Jimmy Hendrick speaking about his famous distorted version on the Dick Havits show. What was the controversy about the national anthem and the way I played it? All I did was play it. I'm American, so I played it. I said

they sang it in school. They made me sing in a school, so it was a flashback. When you mention the national anthem and talk about playing it in any unorthodox way, you immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail from people to say how to guarantee. That's not an orthodox. It isn't Northern Orthodox? No, no.

I thought it was beautiful. But then there you go. Thank you, Jimmy. As we've seen today, the National Anthem is not a static entity, and in fact has evolved since its beginning. And speaking of songs and sounds evolving, on our next episode, we'll be taking a field trip to the other side of the world to find this year's biggest bridge.

breakthrough in dance music. Yes. So Lee Ellis, who's the head of UKPR Warp Records, predicts, and I quote, I think 2014 is going to be a great year for music from Africa breaking through into the more indie ether. So I'll be traveling to Kenya to investigate the pop music of East. Africa, which could very well find itself on the charts this year. You don't want to miss it. And if you like what you heard today, you can find us on iTunes, the iTunes podcast app.

Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, and of course, at www. switchdownpop.com. I'm Charlie Harding. I'm Nate Sloan. Thanks for listening.