This is in response to the nagging complaint of “We don’t need all that jazz” (letter, Feb. 16) when it comes to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The letter writer is correct about the national anthem being sung at major sporting events (it has since World War II), but he has got to be kidding me regarding his comments. What he should do is listen whether the song is taken out of context, or being degraded or disrespected, such as when Carl Lewis on Jan. 21, 1993, sang the song at a basketball game with [a voice that was] equivalent to a train wreck. On July 25, 1990, Roseanne Barr screeched out the song at a baseball game in a key that’s not even on the scale, and then proceeded to spit and grab her crotch. Which is more embarrassing and downright degrading: a jazzed-up version, or the way these two high-profile people sang it? Barr totally disrespected the song written almost 200 years ago.
I treat the national anthem as I do the American flag, as a living thing. I have heard many jazzed-up versions of the song not taken out of context. If you listen to jazzed-up versions, you will find almost all of them pump up the crowd.
So, I say to those who want to sing like they are auditioning for “American Idol,” and they sound good, then go for it. My advice is to find something really worth complaining about, such as why are we getting a 1.4 percent pay raise for fiscal 2011, the lowest since the early 1970s?
Master Sgt. Cedric D. ClarkJoint Base Balad, Iraq