I'm bemused by all of the attention given to Christina Aguilera messing up a few lines of the National Anthem at the Superbowl last night. I enjoyed Leah Michele's performance of America the Beautiful. I wasn't listening very closely to Aguilera, but I read that she lost her way in the fourth line, but kept going.

Four lines into her rendition, the leading lady of "Burlesque" was expected to croon, "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming." Instead, she repeated an earlier line with a slight variation, changing "hailed" to "watched". She was heard singing, "What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last gleaming." Still, she continued on like a pro.

Wikipedia says she also substituted, "cannons" for, "the bombs."

I feel bad for Christina - Robert Goulet blew one word and got flack for years afterwards:

On May 25, 1965, Goulet mangled the lyrics to the United States National Anthem at the opening of the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston heavyweight championship fight in Lewiston, Maine. Goulet had never sung the anthem in public before, and replaced the lyrics "dawn's early light" with "dawn's early night". The gaffe was reported in newspapers nationwide the next morning, and Goulet was criticized in opinion columns for a lack of knowledge of the lyrics.

Of course he was Canadian.

Perhaps the anthem should always be sung over a trap door. With a snake pit below. Or paparazzi.

I was in chorus for Evita quite a while ago, and one night our heroine was supposed to sing, "I need an escape clause," but inexplicably sang, "I need an escape hatch." Back in the green room she screamed, "Hatch? Hatch? Where did I get Hatch?" Perhaps if she'd been an attorney, escape would have led to clause rather than hatch. She was a great singer, though, and was otherwise solid for half a dozen performances. My bass solo was mercifully short, "Things have reached a pretty pass, when someone pretty lower class, can be respected and admired."

Update:

The other big news this morning was evaluating the ads. I was on chat, so I had the sound off during several ads. I almost turned it up because I liked Tim Hutton as Archy in the Nero Wolfe series, but now that I've watched it online, I do have to wonder what Hutton was thinking when he agreed to make the Groupon advert.

In the Tibet ad, sweeping views of Tibet and a serious voiceover about the troubles facing the region gives way to Timothy Hutton gloating about a Groupon deal he got for Tibetan food.

There's a big difference between not caring about what happens in Tibet, and making it clear to everyone that you don't care. Groupon claims it was a spoof, but it didn't play that way.

I loved Busch's dog-sitting ad and their product placement ad was OK. Audi's Release the Hounds ad was funny, and probably a bit true. I liked the Chevy Silverado Lassie ad. I liked the Bridgestone ad with the beaver returning a favor. CarMax's Kid in a Candy Store was very clever. Go Daddy has never made any sense to me (CMaukonen had to tell me what they were selling). The Doritos finger-licking ad was gross, but House-Sitting was funny. I guess I didn't like the VW Force ad as much as everyone else did.

You can see the ads, and vote best and worst at the Wall Street Journal. But you'll have to watch a few WSJ commercials.