Fourth of July
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof thro’ 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?
Commentary doesn’t boast about patriotism. I don’t feel I have to brag about being a patriot or being patriotic. I vote in every election. I pay taxes. I respect and accept the outcome of elections. I stand for the National Anthem. I don’t put my hand over my heart, instead, I sing it.
On the Fourth of July, Chron columnist Lisa Falkenberg has an exceptional take today on our National Anthem. Lisa talks about the Whitney Houston and Jimi Hendrix versions and mentions the one by Jose Feliciano. Here is how Lisa’s column starts:
It’s that nonchalant tracksuit she wore, baggy as she pleased, smiling in front of an orchestra clad in cummerbunds. It’s that adorable headband pushing back her curls under the stadium lights. It’s her proud, glistening face and trembling lips as her voice belted, then crooned, then soared heavenly high before a flag-waving crowd of thousands — and millions more at home.
It’s all these things that leave me a puddle of patriotic tears at the end of Whitney Houston’s dazzling rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” performed in full-throated 4/4 time at Super Bowl halftime in 1991, months after the Persian Gulf War began.
It’s emotional, it’s exquisite, and, as her producer Rickey Minor later acknowledged, it was sung to a dead mic so that all the audience heard was her prerecording, albeit largely her first take in the studio.
I remember being disappointed upon learning that the 27-year-old Houston wasn’t doing her vocal magic on a tightrope quivering with the risks of live performance. Then I realized: that polished, well-orchestrated performance is what it is — an ideal, a symbol, an immaculate tribute. Kind of like that version of America we’re always striving toward.
The real America, especially these days with our discord and distrust, our families divided by politics, our universities under siege, our peaceful protests attended by the National Guard, our Home Depots the targets of ICE raids, is more like the national anthem performed by Jimi Hendrix.
Some critics have found his raging, wailing, grinding electric instrumental profane — the furthest thing from patriotic. I found it painful and unrelenting on my first listen. And that’s the point. This democratic experiment we celebrate every Fourth of July isn’t a pretty song.
Sometimes, it’s a mess, its melodies unrecognizable. Hendrix was willing to sing that song.
One rendition was immortalized at the mud-caked Woodstock festival in the summer of 1969, but Hendrix had been adapting different versions for at least a year, often mixing in a mournful staple from military funerals, “Taps.”
That Hendrix would shred America’s carefully guarded anthem so violently is even more impressive when you consider that just a year earlier, Puerto Rican-born singer José Feliciano was blackballed for performing his laid-back, folksy interpretation at the World Series, and a half century later, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick lost his career for merely taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial oppression and police brutality.
And this at the end:
“Hendrix’s Woodstock Banner is not a sonic destruction of flag or anthem,” writes (Mark) Clague, professor of musicology at the University of Michigan. “Instead, it carries many patriotic trappings.”
He notes Hendrix’s own service in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and his solemnity as he plays, eschewing any trademark body tricks like picking strings with his teeth. He doesn’t purposefully play out of tune or insert comedic TV themes, as he had in other anthem renditions.
“Jimi Hendrix took stock of a nation in violent transition, making this process audible to his listeners as critique, as affirmation, and as call to action,” Clague writes.
I’m not comparing this moment now to the Vietnam era beset by military drafts and endless grieving. The sacrifices of those soldiers and their families are still being felt.
We have another battle raging today — one that threatens the core democratic freedoms our service members sign up to defend: free speech, academic freedoms, due process, the rule of law, civil rights. At stake is everything from right of transgender Americans to serve their country in uniform to the right of a U.S. citizen to walk to work and not be detained by her government because she looks Latina.
This year I will observe Independence Day knowing that the independence of many in this country is in jeopardy. I’ll wave the flag at the Fourth of July parade, stand for the veterans, marvel at the fireworks, and silently register my love for America with her hypocrisies and contradictions and transactional leaders.
I will mourn with Hendrix and dream with Houston. It’s poetic in a way that some of the most brilliant interpretations of our national anthem, which was written by a slaveholder, have come from the descendants of the enslaved.
The songs of Houston and Hendrix are true — both the sacred and the profane. Will one prevail?
Our national anthem ends not with a statement but with a question: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave — o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Someday, I believe it truly will. Even when my faith falters, I remember: freedom is always singing, somewhere.
Here is all of Lisa’s column: Falkenberg: This July 4th, I’ll play Jimi Hendrix and pine for Houston.
I have heard all three versions mentioned. The Whitney version is rousing and emotional. The Hendrix version got me to think more about the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the protests that were happening at the time. The Feliciano version got a big wow out of me. I also remember me having a get over it attitude toward those who felt violated by his version before Game 5 of 1968 World Series between Detroit and San Luis in Tigers Stadium. I have mentioned before that I heard Feliciano sing that version live before a Walter Mondale for President rally at Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Christi in 1984. Cool.
A few days after the Feliciano performance in 1968, USA Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists wearing black gloves in protest on the medal stand during the playing of the National Anthem at the Olympics in Mexico City.
I was watching when they raised their fists, and I didn’t have a problem with their actions. Just like I didn’t have a problem a few days later when Gold Medal Olympian George Foreman waved the USA flag after he won the gold in the boxing ring.
Seven years ago, Feliciano was invited by the Tigers to perform the National Anthem before a game. Guess who they were playing that day – San Luis.
That just shows how silly it was back then to feel violated.
Unfortunately, there are still plenty of folk around today in the USA who think they know what proper patriotic etiquette is. These folks totally miss the point of freedom, the Fourth of July and Independence Day.
Maybe they ought to go to Page A7 of today’s hard copy of the Chron and read this:
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This is of course the beginning of the Declaration of Independence from 249 years ago today. The Chron E-Board is again printing the entire text of this cherished document on the Fourth of July.
Lisa Falkenberg’s column today is a must read. She is spot on. That’s why she is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. That’s why I plunk down $109 every four weeks.
_____
It was about a 20-minute drive to the Department of Public Safety Driver License office. I checked in, filled out a form, got called, answered a few questions, was asked if I wanted to register to vote, read an eye chart, took a new photo, and paid my $33. I was there for about an hour and ten minutes.
_____
The featured photo is from 2018 at the Baytown Fourth of July Parade. That is my Dad with State Sen. Carol Alvarado and Houston Firefighter Luke Manion.
_____
I stopped watching the Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest a few years ago. A couple of days ago they had a weigh-in for the contestants. Silly.
_____
If I have time I will try to watch “Calamity Jane” today to see Doris Day sing the Oscar winning tune “Secret Love.”
_____
We lost the series finale in Denver yesterday. It would have been nice to sweep the Rockies. We will get another chance when the Rockies visit Daikin Park for three next month, August 26-28.
We are at Dodger Stadium for three this weekend.
_____
I will stay in this evening and watch the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks on NBC. Have a safe Fourth of July Weekend.