The meaning of “The Star-Spangled Banner”— America’s original protest song—on the brink of its most high profile performance.
SHE DID NOT have to think very hard or for very long about how she was going to sing the song before she opened her mouth to sing it. She had been singing it all her life, in every possible setting and situation. She sang it at the opening of the Democratic National Convention in the riven year of 1968; she sang it with Aaron Neville and Dr. John at the 2006 Super Bowl; she sang it at Harvard’s commencement in 2014. Now, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Thanksgiving Day, 2016, Aretha Franklin would do what she always did and make the song her own. She would let everybody else think about it.
“I thought I’d do what people ask for,” she says, with an imperial emphasis on the words and syllables of her choosing, a queenly habit of speech. “They want to hear me play the piano, so I played the piano. I think that they were surprised by the length of it—but that they absolutely enjoyed it.”
This story is from the February 06,2017 edition of ESPN The Magazine.
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This story is from the February 06,2017 edition of ESPN The Magazine.
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