Sorry I've been away so long. Like most
people in Boston, I’ve been following the Red Sox closely, and am just
beginning to consider what life will be like now that the parade is over. (The first five artic les in the on-line Boston Globe were about the Sox, so
I guess we won’t exactly be going cold turkey.)
Among the
few thing that got me annoyed during the run were, in fact, two Globe articles. The first fell into the classic literary form
sportswriter faireweatherness. Because
the Red Sox lost two of the first three games, and made some obvious blunders,
this reported now saw them as not playing hard enough and announced his disgust
with a team he had probably been enthusiastic about for over 170 games. I just hope he’s not taking credit now for
lighting a fire under them for the next three consecutive wins.
The worse
offense, though, was another writer who announced it was now time to retire the
tradition of singing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” at the seventh inning
stretch. A Boston Herald writer said the same thing, but only as a temporary
suggestion for the playoffs, to throw
the other team off, kind of like replacing your left-handed knuckleball starter
with a fastball righty in the eighth inning.
To which many have replied that you never change anything in the middle
of a lucky streak – why not have the Red Sox shave their beards to the next
team wouldn’t recognize tem?
But the Globe guy wants the song gone for
good. Why: 1. It’s been around for over
10 years; 2. It’s not a good song, and 3.
There’s a line about touching that creeps him out because Diamond was
writing an ode to the young Caroline Kennedy.
If
obsolescence is a reason for dropping an anthem, why do we have two Civil War
songs at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness (more on that later) and a
national anthem that dates from one of our less significant wars?
Regarding
age and quality, The Star-Spangled banner may be the most unsingable national
anthem in the world, and its butchery by hundreds of incompetent and egotistical
performers is grounds enough for its demise.
And if bad
lyrics are the problem, let’s look again at “My Old Kentucky Home,” which is a
lament by a “darky” – the word is used several times – who has apparently been
sold away from his plantation and may be leaving his family behind to die in a
strange land.
Even worse,
“Maryland My Maryland” is a pro-Confederacy song that urged Maryland to
join Virginia and “spurn the Northern
scum” led by the “despot,” “vandal” and “tyrant” Lincoln, and even includes the
words “Sic semper is the proud refrain” – as used by John Wilkes Booth.
No, sports
fans and patriots, there’s no accounting for taste in mob lyrics. How else can we explain the British soccer
tradition of club songs, ranging from
Liverpool’s valiant “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to West Ham’s bizarre “I’m Forever Blowing
Bubbles”? The songs have catchy tunes –
okay, not the SSB – and a few lyrics that also work – the Fenway chant of “So
Good, So good” that breaks up the song – and then they take on a life, as
Caroline did, and does still more after Diamond came to the diamond to lead
Sweet Caroline on the first game after the Marathon bombing. Woe to him who tries to apply Mr. Spock’s
logic to the most emotional of art forms.
I wonder if
they still sing The Star-Spangled Banner on the deck of the Enterprise?
