I love America, and I love the American national anthem.
As a musician, I appreciate the generous use of applied dominants in making an already stirring melody even more grandiose. As a human, I can’t but help get shivers down my spine as the anthem builds to its climax, “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
Yet I am an Aussie, who can’t but help wish just a little bit that he was an American. Another such interloper, Sergei Rachmaninoff, who became a US citizen in 1943, having fled Soviet Russia years earlier for the freedom of the new world, orchestrated his own tribute to The Star Spangled Banner.
The latest tribute comes courtesy of Lady Gaga, who absolutely nailed it before the NFL Superbowl last night, and has well and truly earned herself The XYZ Quote of the Day. Along with her heartfelt rendition, I loved the reaction of the crowd when the cameras crossed to the American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, standing to attention. Like the reaction of the Space X staff when they successfully landed the Falcon 9 rocket, you can’t fake that kind of patriotism.
God bless America.
