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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2568 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 7, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Its military content and somewhat bombastic tune made it popular among military and marching bands, cementing it as the unofficial anthem long before Congress made it official in the 30's.

I'm sure it slaps when performed by a marching band made up of talented musicians. But as a national anthem, a song meant to be sung by masses of people, most of whom aren't professional musicians? Very peculiar choice.

People do successfully sing it literally all the time though. Every sporting event in the country opens with the Star Spangled Banner, and it's almost always great. Americans sing our national anthem more than any other nationality on the planet. And for everyone except the microphoned soloist, it doesn't really matter if they hit every note perfectly. That's the beauty of large choruses--everyone's tone-deafness sort of washes out and it aounds great no matter what. I have never once been disappointed by the crowd singing the national anthem at a baseball game.

The Star Spangled Banner fucking slaps, and I'm tired of pretending it doesn't.

I'm not even criticising it from a compositional standpoint, I just think the level of technical skill it requires is beyond the reach of most untrained singers. I'm not even American but I've seen more than my fair share of "fail" videos where solo singers hit bum notes or have audible voice cracks when they get up into the higher register ("land of the free"). When sung by a singer who knows what they're doing it's a suitably stirring piece of music.

It's not really meant to be a sing-along though, and most people don't. It's an anthem, not a hymn.

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