re: The Star Spangled Banner

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Best nontraditional anthem ever is Marvin Gaye's 1983 ASG:

2nd is Jimi Hendrix

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Feliciano’s performance came before Game 5, Oct. 7 in Detroit, which the year before had been the site of race riots that killed dozens.

Feliciano, then 23, was suggested for the anthem by Ernie Harwell, the broadcaster who was a pop song writer himself. Feliciano had a hit that year with “Light My Fire,” a reinterpretation of the Doors song.

But taking liberties with Jim Morrison is one thing. Taking liberties with Francis Scott Key proved more contentious.

Feliciano went on the field with his guide dog and an acoustic guitar. He was quite free with the song’s melody, giving it a slower folk tempo and adding extra syllables and different stresses. What resulted was an anthem that to today’s ears is mellow and expressive.

Many ears in 1968 heard it differently.

Boos were heard from the stands, but the real blowup came afterward.

“It was a disgrace, an insult,” a baseball fan, Arlene Raicevich of Detroit, told The Associated Press. “I’m going to write my senator about it.”

“It sounded like a hippie was singing it,” said another Detroiter, Bernie Gray.

The players at the game were divided on the performance. “I don’t think it was the proper place for that kind of treatment,” Roger Maris of the St. Louis Cardinals told The Boston Globe. “Maybe I’m a conservative.”

Pitcher Dick Hughes said: “Thumbs down all the way. That’s a conformist’s song and should be sung the way it was written.” (We should add, there is no official version.)

But their teammate Tim McCarver said: “Why not that way? People go through a routine when they play the anthem. They stand up and yawn and almost fall asleep. This way, at least they listened.”

Bill Freehan of the Tigers said: “I know one thing. He made Marvin Gaye, who sang the anthem Sunday, sound like a square.” Perhaps Gaye took note. His groovy version at the 1983 N.B.A. All-Star Game, now considered one of the best ever, is the antithesis of square.

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