Wayne Messmer: National anthem, protesters deserve respect
More than 21 years ago, popular anthem singer Wayne Messmer and I had a conversation after the National Basketball Association suspended star player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf of the Denver Nuggets indefinitely without pay because the player refused to stand during our national anthem.
Abdul-Rauf's refusal to stand "is a much more dignified way of expressing silent speech than ruining the song by singing it disrespectfully," Messmer said in March 1996.
As with most things involving top athletes and big money, a compromise was reached two days later allowing the Nuggets to put Abdul-Rauf back in the starting lineup and giving the player the right to stand with his head bowed and his eyes closed in prayer. Fans, on the other hand, were still free to spend the anthem sipping beer, munching hot dogs, talking, singing in a mocking manner, cheering, booing or taking a quick bathroom break before the action began. Now, you can add cellphone activity to the list of things folks can do during our national anthem.
"I often sing with my eyes closed so I don't see some knucklehead on the phone or wearing his cap," says Messmer today, as he nears his 5,000th performance of the anthem. Messmer says he respects the freedom to protest, just as he respects the anthem.
"For me, it is more than just another song," Messmer writes in his essay "What the National Anthem Means to Me," which explains how Francis Scott Key wrote the poem after "he was inspired by the brave men who fought to save Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor on Sept. 13-14 in the early days of the War of 1812 and the 15-stripe and 15-star flag that survived the vicious night of bombardment."
Messmer says he sings the anthem as his way to honor the people who have given their lives for our country, and not, as often happens with anthem singers who don't get that sentiment, a chance to show off some vocal tricks, see how long he can hold a note, or turn the anthem into a pep song.
The song, with the melody of an old English drinking song about women and wine, got its start at athletic events at the 1918 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox. Messmer says folklore claims President Woodrow Wilson asked the military band to play something during the 7th-inning stretch at old Comiskey Park, where the Cubs played because it held more fans than the Cubs' home field of Weeghman Park. "The band had exhausted their repertoire and were forced to play their last remaining tune," Messmer says. "Naturally, people stood and the tradition loosely began."
Declared our national anthem in 1931, the song got played at some ballparks during World War II, but it didn't become a regular thing until years later. The Cubs didn't start playing it regularly until the 1960s, and even then, not before every game, Messmer says.
At the 1968 World Series, José Feliciano made a name for himself before Game Five with a free-form, folksy, controversial version that earned him the distinction of being the first blind person booed at a World Series. Jimi Hendrix used the anthem as a weapon at Woodstock. Marvin Gaye used it as a dance mix at an NBA All-Star Game, Kenny G. used it for way too long, and Roseanne Barr used it to accompany a scratch and spit.
The Naperville Municipal Band used to end outdoor summer concerts with the anthem, but "people would grab their kids and their lawn chairs and start heading out," longtime conductor Ron Keller told me for that 1996 column. So Keller moved it to the start.
Moving the anthem in an attempt to get more respect for it makes sense. We don't sing it before plays, movies, concerts, math competitions, poetry slams, weddings or book readings. It's really a song about "bombs bursting in air," and war. That is even too violent for football and hockey, let alone basketball, baseball and soccer. Messmer, who performs beautiful, inspiring duets with his wife, Kathleen, to "God Bless America," "America the Beautiful" and "O, Canada," says he'd be OK with a change in the anthem routine before every sporting event.
"It's counterproductive for me to say, 'Why don't we stop doing what I do?'" quips Messmer, who admits that he'd be happy to sing instead "America the Beautiful" or "God Bless America," which was written by Jewish immigrant Irving Berlin while serving in the U.S. Army in 1918.
Or, as a 1996 episode of TV's "The Simpsons" did during a boxing match, the announcer could just tell the crowd, "Due to popular demand, we will forgo our national anthem." Whatever song we sing at sporting events, we'd all do better if we followed the advice Messmer gave to his wife before a recent duet at Wrigley Field: "Let's make it pretty, meaningful and respectful."