Renee Fleming crushes my Super Bowl hopes

Even more than the showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos, even more than the showdown between Peyton Manning and what a win would mean for his legacy, there was one other thing that piqued my attention (even if a late afternoon nap had me miss it and much of the first half).

That was glorious-voiced, and lovely looking, if I may, Renee Fleming, singing the National Anthem.

"Finally!" I thought. "We'll get it sung right at a major sporting event."

Sadly, not quite so.



Fleming didn't fully butcher "The Star Spangled Banner," unlike the typical big-time sports event singer, tis true but she did at least one-third maul it. I had hoped that she would just, you know, sing it like it's written.

If you can't clock it in under 2 minutes flat, on the time, you blew it. If you can't sing it straight up (if you're sober, since it was originally a drinking song tune) without all sorts of hitches and adornments, you blew it.

Fleming didn't have as much of that as your typical rock, rap, R&B, country, pop, or imitation Slim Whitman star, but she had enough of that to have blown it.

When I heard the first syllables on YouTube, I knew my hopes had been sadly crushed. And, I didn't care for the "reverb" chorus behind her, either. That hurt the clock time a bit. She might have completed the 2-minute drill correctly as far as flat time, if not for that, but it would have had enough issues otherwise to be a one-fifth mauling.

I do salute her for not lip-synching, even if it seems that the cold sapped her lungs, and tone, both a bit.