Ray Charles: "America the Beautiful"

Nice.
I've always thought that instead of forcing everyone to endure someone trying to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" (and usually failing miserably), at sporting and patriotic events they should just play Ray's well-known studio recording of this song. He nailed it, it makes me misty-eyed and patriotic, and any tone-deaf schmuck can sing along with it, even though most people only know one stanza.
Other than being very hard for the average person to sing, my other complaint against our current anthem is that it's a poem written about one battle (as opposed to the country itself), later set to the tune of an old English song ("To Anacreon in Heaven"). I think "Banner" should still be part of any US military band's repertoire, but IMHO it's a lousy anthem.
 
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As I said a few weeks ago over in the US Airways thread:

As an aside, in a previous life, I was with American Freightways. One of my duties (because of our company name) was to ensure that we complied fully with the flag code (unlike so many other companies out there). [snip]. Hell, we even paid employees to properly lower and raise the flag at ALL of our facilities every Memorial Day. I handled that task at the main office.

In my case, the lowering to half-staff at sunrise and the raising at noon was accompanied by Ray Charles' version of America the Beautiful being piped through the office building's intercom. Quite loudly I might add.

Not many people would be working but those that were definitely stopped what they were doing for a moment!
:)
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nddons said:
We share the same continent so I guess we can share the holiday too. ;)
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Their Thanksgiving was last month, though. I guess harvest comes sooner in the Great White North. :D

We discussed Thanksgiving yesterday when I was up there. Some people didn't realize the holiday was Thursday. They thought it was Friday. For them it's a Monday holiday.

Great Ray Charles song. I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving...
 
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