The Super Bowl was a really exciting game to watch and I admit I probably enjoyed it, at least in part, because I had no real strong feelings one way or the other about who I wanted to win. It would have been nice for the Falcons to get their first win thereby making sports history of a sort. But it was also nice to see history being made as the Pats got their fifth championship, and Tom Brady got his fifth ring along with yet another MVP title. So either outcome was fine with me. I just enjoyed the game.
Not so much, the pregame activities. In particular, the part just before "Country Star" Luke Byron's dirge-like rendering of the National Anthem which received great acclaim from his fellow country music stars according to "Billboard". If those people enjoyed that performance, they must really be over the moon during funerals!
But the performance to which I refer was by a trio of young women who favored us with their version of "God Bless America". I say "their version" because it bore little resemblance to the song I thought I knew by heart nor that introduced by Kate Smith during World War II. These ladies, Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones, who appear to have gotten parts of their names from a random letter generator, are from the Broadway cast of "Hamilton" and are, clearly, big fans of vocal calisthenics. Indeed, they filled the air with such a cacophonous array of trills and warbling that I was reminded of a sixty piece orchestra in its pre-performance warm up routine when all of the musicians are tuning up their individual instruments at the same time! But none of that was as bad as when they CHANGED THE WORDS OF THE SONG! I don't know if Irving Berlin was a misogynist or not, but just in case he was, and with an apparent nod to NOW, the gals felt they had to change the line where Mr. B wrote: "And crown thy good with brotherhood..." to read: "And crown thy good with brotherhood and sisterhood...".
Why can't these guys (and I mean singers of both genders) just sing the songs as they are written? I suppose that's too much to ask, and in this era of political correctness and inclusion at all costs, I should be happy that this trio didn't extend Berlin's line any further by including LGBT-hood.
Not so much, the pregame activities. In particular, the part just before "Country Star" Luke Byron's dirge-like rendering of the National Anthem which received great acclaim from his fellow country music stars according to "Billboard". If those people enjoyed that performance, they must really be over the moon during funerals!
But the performance to which I refer was by a trio of young women who favored us with their version of "God Bless America". I say "their version" because it bore little resemblance to the song I thought I knew by heart nor that introduced by Kate Smith during World War II. These ladies, Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones, who appear to have gotten parts of their names from a random letter generator, are from the Broadway cast of "Hamilton" and are, clearly, big fans of vocal calisthenics. Indeed, they filled the air with such a cacophonous array of trills and warbling that I was reminded of a sixty piece orchestra in its pre-performance warm up routine when all of the musicians are tuning up their individual instruments at the same time! But none of that was as bad as when they CHANGED THE WORDS OF THE SONG! I don't know if Irving Berlin was a misogynist or not, but just in case he was, and with an apparent nod to NOW, the gals felt they had to change the line where Mr. B wrote: "And crown thy good with brotherhood..." to read: "And crown thy good with brotherhood and sisterhood...".
Why can't these guys (and I mean singers of both genders) just sing the songs as they are written? I suppose that's too much to ask, and in this era of political correctness and inclusion at all costs, I should be happy that this trio didn't extend Berlin's line any further by including LGBT-hood.