You know, if you make it mandatory, you’ll never know if it’s for real or just forced compliance. If a man tells a woman she has to say “I love you” to him at least once a day or he’ll punish her, can he be confident she means it when she says it?
The national anthem would have to be played before all sporting events held at Wisconsin venues that received any public funding under a mostly symbolic bill passed by the state Assembly.
Why? What’s the point? If it’s compelled, what good is it?
The requirement would apply at all levels of athletic events played on a field that ever received public money, from a bar league softball game at the local park to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
If it’s compelled, you can’t be sure it’s sincere.
Updating to add:
It’s not really all that fast though. Could be cut at least in half!
Comments
11 responses to “Play that tune”
I remember going to a soccer* game** in Scotland (Celtic-Rangers) back in the seventies, the first sporting event I’d been to outside of the US, and being pleasantly surprised at the lack of ceremony before the game** began. The players just ran out onto the field***, kicked the ball around a bit, and then the game** started. No need for faux displays of patriotism.
*Football
**Match
***Pitch
Did they say anything in the bill about how fast the anthem could be played? Play at 100X or 1000X speed and get it out of the way.
ARC,
Ha! John Kiley, the organist at Fenway Park back in the seventies and eighties, was known for speeding through the anthem. If memory serves, he could do it in about 90 seconds.
Excellent plan.
Good find on the video, but I remember him doing it even faster (but my memory lies sometimes).
A couple of things about his playing at Bruins games: they usually had a singer (René Rancourt), so he had to slow it down; also, since this was the NHL, he often had to play two anthems. I always preferred the Canadian anthem.
Here’s John Kiley at Fenway, with the great Sherm Feller announcing. He gets through the song in under a minute.
I had the pleasure of watching a screening of the great Buster Keaton film “The General” with live music by John Kiley on the organ in Kresge Auditorium. What a delightful experience.
This thread is enough of an excuse for me to post the only good rendition of the Australian anthem ever.
I remember several Olympiads ago, cringing through a medal ceremony I found that the anthem WAS significantly abbreviated, lurching into ‘the rocket’s red glare’ in mid-stride.
What a Maroon, that video sounds exactly right to me (but then, I don’t often listen to the national anthems of other countries).
Holms, that is priceless!