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January 6, 2012

EDITORIAL: ‘Anthem’ proposal way off key

No need to regulate ‘Banner’ performances

Anonymous The Tribune-Star The Tribune Star Fri Jan 06, 2012, 10:09 AM EST

Remember Faith Hill’s impassioned rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl in 2000?

Or Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic version at Woodstock in 1969?

And Jose Feliciano’s acoustic guitar version at the 1968 World Series?

Those renditions are among many memorable and laudable statements of pride, loyalty, inclusion and, in Hendrix’s case, protest. Those performances also were notable because they all departed — a little or a lot — from the sheet music’s melody, emphasis or rhythm.

Fast forward to Indiana, 2012. Under a bill filed by state Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, had those versions been performed at any of the state’s public schools and universities, they probably would be illegal.

Becker’s bill would require anyone, professional or amateur, performing the anthem at a public school or university to sign a contract agreeing to observe state standards. Violators would be fined $25.

Becker’s bill doesn’t define standards, but the Associated Press quoted her as saying she wants the anthem to be performed in the “way that we would normally have it sung or heard throughout most of our state and our country.”

We can only assume she means singing and playing the song, note for note, beat for beat, just as it appears on sheet music. No improvisation. No interpretation. No embellishments. “Normally.”

Becker’s bill would require a state department, Education, to develop standards and police adherence — a department that has more than enough to do in dealing with, oh, you know, educational quality.

The bill also would require public schools and universities to make audio recordings of every anthem performance, save that audio for two years, file complaints of “illegal” performances and adjudicate complaints. We’re sure school and university administrations — given pressures to make budget and meet educational standards — have time to monitor thousands of performances of the anthem. Not.

We are sure Becker is nothing but sincere in her respect for the anthem, and we applaud that respect. Becker’s ill-conceived bill apparently sprang from a constituent’s complaint about a school performance of the anthem that was deemed disrespectful.

But we don’t believe the venerable anthem needs this kind of protection. It has remained vibrant and memorable, through the rigors of the ages, ever since the melody of a British drinking song was applied to Francis Scott Key’s words after the Battle of Baltimore at Fort McHenry in 1814.

Ironically, it seems to us enacting this bill would be anti-democratic and would do damage to the very freedoms chronicled in the anthem’s own words.

We also fear that this bill treads dangerously close to disrespecting cultural, racial and ethnic differences that inform performers’ individual interpretations of the songs — just as Hill, Hendrix and Feliciano drew upon their life experiences in their performances.

The bill was read in the legislature Wednesday and assigned to the Indiana Education and Career Development committee. Our hope is the committee — which includes Sen. Tim Skinner, D-Terre Haute — quickly finds the measure as off-key as we do and plays “Taps” for this piece of unneeded and invasive legislation.

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