Speaking of things that are disrespectful to various national anthems, I am furious that people are running around talking about the Star Spangled Banner without giving proper credit to those to whom the credit is due: Whitney Houston & John Stafford Smith. I saw it on the internet so it must be true:
Google gives credit for the US national anthem to Whitney Houston & John Stafford Smith
I have to run out and pick up the album “Super Bowl XXV” now.
C’mon – everybody knows that song was written by Leo Kottke’s brother!
Well, the historical record is admittedly a bit spotty in that time period, but of course John Stafford Smith wrote his pop hit some time around Super Bowls negative-CXCV or negative-CXC, when professional football was still run by the Anacreontic Society. It had been lost in the mists of time, until Whitney Houston and a crack team of symbolologists unearthed the manuscript in a crypt that had been used as a secret meeting place for the Freemasons/Illuminati during the American Revolution. This is just common knowledge.
Here’s the youtube video of Whitney Houston’s performance which is … uh … let’s call it the “legendary” one. It appears that the Googles should have also credited four F-16 jets from the 56th Tactical Training Wing at MacDill Airforce Base, as well as the Florida Orchestra under the direction of maestro Jajha Ling, not to mention our brave men and women serving in the Persian Gulf and throughout the world. Somebody else presumably made that particular arrangement, most likely before it was performed in Tampa on that fateful evening, but the expert consensus is that such people deserve no credit whatsoever.
Ah yeah, that classic pop standard, “The Star Spangled Banner.” It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.