Have you heard these other terrible versions of national anthems?

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This article was published 20/02/2016 (3826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before we kick off today’s column, we’d like everyone to stand up, remove their hats, and join us in singing our national anthem.

You do know the words, right? Ha ha ha! Of course you don’t! That’s because you’re a Canadian. If you have ever attended a sporting event, you have heard thousands of patriotic Canadians, people who could not sing in unison if their lives depended on it, people with only the vaguest notion of the words, glancing around furtively and mumbling: “O Canada… True patriot love dum dum dum dum de dum… With glowing hearts dum dum de dum… We stand on cars and freeze!”

Still, not knowing the words to O Canada does not prevent Canadians from being morally outraged when a major celebrity does something bizarre with our beloved anthem.

Which is why the social media universe exploded with anger over the weekend in the wake of famed Canadian singer Nelly Furtado’s unconventional take on the anthem at the NBA all-star game in Toronto.

In an attempt to put her own stamp on the song, the Juno Award-winner sang a slow, melodious, nearly unrecognizable version, ignoring the traditional melody, while accompanied by a flutist.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkBFBbHd5c4

“Is Nelly Furtado having a breakdown? That’s about the worst performance of the Canadian anthem I’ve ever heard,” tweeted ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon.

Fortunately for Furtado, she’s in excellent company, as you’ll see from our Top Five Epic Anthem Fails:

5) The sinner: Burton Cummings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgR9d-crm8g 

The scene of the crime: The 100th Grey Cup game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Calgary Stampeders at Rogers Centre on Nov. 25, 2012

Out of a sense of journalistic fairness, we feel compelled to start our list with a hometown hero. As leader of the original Canadian supergroup, the Guess Who, Cummings is the definition of homegrown rock ’n’ roll royalty. As the song goes, he has his own way to rock; unfortunately, he also has his own way to sing the national anthem. Here’s how the Globe and Mail described his performance: “The Stand Tall singer delivered O Canada while seated at a Yamaha electric piano, with a drum machine adding to a lounge-crooner aura. The freewheeling Winnipegger sang breezily and bilingually — as if offering an official-language Christmas carol — but forgot the line ‘God keep our land, glorious and free.’ For his ignoble lyrical flub, no twoonie in the tip jar for him.” How did his Vegas-style rendition go down? Well, Laura Lushington, a staff writer for TheReflector.ca, spoke for many when she wrote: “To begin this prestigious event, the one and only Burton Cummings sang O Canada. OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. He ruined our anthem and brought zero energy into the crowd. The man SAT down, changed the lyrics and used a drum machine circa 1975. God help us all.” Fortunately for Cummings, Justin Bieber performed at halftime, and the crowd really hated him, even booing when his face popped up on the JumboTron.

 

4) The sinner: Irish saloon singer Mary O’Dowd

The scene of the crime: Game 3 of a four-game stand between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 14, 1985

By all accounts, Mary O’Dowd is a lovely singer and a lovely woman, but she ranks high on almost every online list of atrocious anthem singers thanks to her butchering of O Canada in the Bronx. The Blue Jays won the game 7-4, but no one remembers that because the only thing anyone talked about was O’Dowd, a professional singer who once performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. The Chicago Tribune wrote at the time: “It opened like a Groucho Marx movie. Mary O’Dowd, assigned to sing the Canadian and U.S. national anthems, was halfway through her first number Saturday night when she realized she knew neither the melody nor the words for O Canada. Apologizing, she went to the Yankee dugout and found the music as the Yankee Stadium crowd of 54,367 rocked with laughter.” The second time around, she was badly out of tune. “I was singing fine in the dugout,” O’Dowd told CBC later. “When I walked out on the field, I froze.” She wasn’t comforted to hear that a survey found few Canadians know the tune or the lyrics. She called then-Toronto mayor Art Eggleton to offer her apologies. “I thought that was a most graceful gesture on her part,” said Eggleton, who tried to book O’Dowd to sing in his city, but the Blue Jays refused to play ball, as their entertainment schedule was already filled. Eventually, she trilled a perfect version of the song in the parking lot outside Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. So it ended on a high note. Sort of.

 

3) The sinner: Famed U.S. sprinter Carl Lewis

 

The scene of the crime: A Jan. 21, 1993, NBA game between the Chicago Bulls and the New Jersey Nets in East Rutherford, N.J.

Legendary track and field athlete Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals, including nine gold, but, as Time magazine noted, the Olympic speedster will never outrun his inglorious 1993 anthem performance. The infamous self-promoter has sprinted his way to the upper echelons on most lists of the worst butcherings of The Star-Spangled Banner. Here’s how CBS News recalled his musical train wreck: “Before beginning the anthem, Lewis asked the crowd if it was ‘ready.’ He just as well had asked that of himself instead, starting the anthem with a note as sour as any pickled vegetable you’d find in the deepest reaches of Germany. During ‘rocket’s red glare,’ his voice cracked to the point of nails on a chalkboard. Obviously noting he was losing, or had lost, the crowd, he proclaimed, ‘Uh-oh! I’ll make up for it now.’ Except he didn’t … all that followed was more off-key notes, head-shaking and shame.” In an article titled I Witnessed Carl Lewis Murder the National Anthem, Deadspin.com writer Sean Newell recalled being at the game as a Grade 6 New York sports nut and worshipper of Michael Jordan. “It would be years before I would appreciate the significance of that night and say with some perverted pride ‘I was there’ whenever someone brought it up,” Newell wrote. “To this day I remain bitter, though. I saw the best basketball player ever (Jordan) in his prime, and I can’t remember a single thing about it except Carl Lewis.”

 

2) The sinner: Dennis Casey Park

The scene of the crime: The first home game of the Las Vegas Posse, a CFL one-year wonder, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Nevada’s Sam Boyd Stadium on July 16, 1994

The Posse wanted to do things right for their first home game as part of the CFL. So, according to the Baltimore Sun, they hauled in Park as a last-minute replacement to sing O Canada and complement Dionne Warwick’s rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner. The Posse won the game 32-22, but the only thing fans remember is that Park (singing under the pseudonym Greg Bartholomew) turned O Canada into “Uh-oh Canada” by mangling the lyrics and crooning it to the tune of O Christmas Tree. “That’s what we think it sounds like,” Michael J. Murray, then vice-president of communications for the CFL, said at the time. “The number of calls that we’ve received have astounded us. It was just like a grass fire across this country.” The owner of the Las Vegas team, Nick Mileti, quickly apologized. “By way of explanation, but not excuse, this singer was recommended to us out of Los Angeles as a professional who had sung your anthem many times for the Olympics,” Mileti said in a letter to then-prime minister Jean Chretien. “Obviously we were misled.” The maligned singer appeared on several Canadian radio stations to apologize and prove he knew the words. He blamed his performance on a severe echo caused because the stadium, which can hold 32,000, held only 12,000 for the opener. “All I could hear was the echo from about two notes earlier,” Park said. “There was no intention to sing any other melody whatsoever.” Two weeks later, he was brought to a game in Hamilton and sang it properly. With glowing hearts we saw him rise.

 

1) The sinner: Comedian Roseanne Barr

 

The scene of the crime: A baseball game between the San Diego Padres and the Cincinnati Reds at Jack Murphy Stadium on July 25, 1990

This reportedly came about because the ownership group of the Padres was led by TV producer Tom Werner, who also happened to be executive producer of the sitcom Roseanne. “What do you think about Roseanne singing the national anthem?” he asked the team’s vice-president of PR, Andy Strasberg, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Great. Can she sing?” Strasberg replied. “Don’t worry about it,” Werner told him. What ensued is what is generally considered the worst anthem performance in history. It is widely known as “the Barr-Strangled Banner.” Recalls the Union-Tribune: “No one has butchered it like Barr. Not even close. It wasn’t just the off-key screeching or the fingers in her ears as the boos rang out from the crowd of 27,285. To top it off, Barr made an obscene gesture and spit as she stepped away from the microphone.” After butchering the song, the comic hammed it up, mimicking the actions of players by spitting and grabbing her crotch as if adjusting a protective cup. Chides BleacherReport.com: “If you are going to mock the national anthem, you better make sure it’s hilarious. And that is where Roseanne really botched this anthem. The awkward and horrible singing just wasn’t backed with enough humour to make this anything but a travesty.” Roseanne is not fond of discussing the incident, but has said she meant no disrespect. “I started too high. I knew about six notes in that I couldn’t hit the big note. So I just tried to get through it, but I couldn’t hear anything with 50,000 drunk (expletives) booing, screaming ‘you fat (expletive),’ giving me the finger and throwing bottles at me during the song they ‘respect’ so much.”

 

When it comes to anthem singing, the Barr could not be set any lower. For safety reasons, however, the next time you’re at a game, when you cover your heart, you might want to plug your ears, too.

 

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca