...before a sporting event in order to completely confuse the attendees in
your immediate surrounding. Trust me, this will work. It is a technique
perfected by my friend and his father (who will remain anonymous.) We all know that before any major professional sporting
event in the United States a musician of some sort will play or sing the
Star-Spangled Banner. For every activity in life, there exists a method to make
the activity more lively. You may have thought that the mundane and robotic
three minutes before sporting events while you sing the Star-Spangled Banner is
off limits to the infiltration of funny. This, my
American friend, is not the case. Sing the Star-Spangled Banner one note off!
Start not with "Oh," but with "Say:"
"SAY can you see by..."
"THE dawn's early light what..."
"SO proudly we hailed at..."
You get the idea. Essentially, if you are
correctly singing incorrectly, then the first word of the next line should
arrive as the last word of the current line. Got that? This technique may take
some practice, and is quite the mind blister at first. Here are the full lyrics
(remember to ommit the first "Oh":
(Oh), Say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Although those surrounding you in the stands will be thrown off during the
entirety of your bizarre antic, the real funny bunny comes at the
end of the song. Check out what happens when you reach the end:
"the land of the free A-AND..."
"the home of the BRAVE....
(END)"
Everyone else is singing the last "the" before the
final "brave" while you are singing "brave!" You stop one
note shy of finishing the tune and everyone around you will be in a complete
shock! Don't worry, you will more confuse people than offend them.
People will look at you with confusion rather than irritation, and the best thing to do is squint your eyes as if you are
confused and kind of look around you as if something has happened to you. In
fact something has happened to you, you have satisfied your inner child:
The only true quest of any man.