I savored my time on top of the podium by watching the American flag rise up out of the crowd as the anthem played, thinking about how every single second of training I’ve done was for this minute and how many people played a role in my achievement.
Geddy Lee and I went to the same grade school. He moved away when we were still young, but I remember him like I do all my friends from back then. Then in 1982, Dave Thomas and I were approached to do a record as the McKenzie Brothers on Anthem Records, the same label that Rush was on.
I feel like it took artists like Pimp C and Andre 3000 with ‘International Players Anthem’ – I feel like it took the Memphis sound to a certain peak but it never really broke into the mainstream.
I feel in my heart it is right to continue to kneel during the national anthem, and I will do whatever I can to be part of the solution.
I think it’s important to realize that the players who are protesting aren’t protesting the anthem. They’re not protesting the flag. People kind of move the goalposts on them and try to tell them what they’re protesting. But as they keep saying, that’s not what they’re protesting.
I must say I personally prefer the FC Cologne anthem over the Liverpool one.
‘Freebird’ is an anthem, and ‘Simple Man’ is a very nice song.
When I was on the podium singing the national anthem, and the crowd were all singing it, it was definitely… It was a moment to remember, and I’m going to remember it for the rest of my life.
When I heard the royal family wanted to have me perform in celebration of Prince William’s marriage, I knew I had to give them a little something. ‘Wet’ is the perfect anthem for Prince William or any playa to get the club smokin’.
To me, there’s two symbols for Team U.S.A.: the national anthem and the American flag.
I was the first artist to put the national anthem on the charts, and I’m thrilled.
To sing the national anthem is wonderful, but it’s far from the sign of a strong team and it is absolutely no indication of a lack of desire to fight.
And I respect the anthem. I would never kneel for it. We all come from different walks of life and think differently about the anthem and the flag and what that means.
I remember Iggy and the Stooges’ song ‘Search and Destroy’ reaching out from my speakers to me like my own personal anthem.
Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.
My heart’s in stage. Making ‘Quadrophenia’ was exciting because we were riding around on scooters with no crash helmets. But ‘hurry up and wait’ is the anthem of films. Everybody wants you ready, and then you sit doing nothing.
I didn’t really get sidetracked into being a singer. It was just something I started to do for fun in school, like singing the national anthem.
That first game was so hyped up, and it was obviously my first experience of a crowd in a World Cup. When I first walked out and heard the national anthem, it was just an unreal experience. I didn’t expect a crowd like that.
I don’t think kneeling during the anthem is such a bad thing.
To Southerners like my mother, ‘Gone With the Wind’ was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched fist raised to the North, an anthem of defiance.
‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ just makes people feel good. It became a teen anthem twice. How cool is that?
Players have numerous opportunities to express themselves with all the platforms that exist today. So, you know, standing for the national anthem we believe is a part of their responsibility as players in our league.
I love the national anthem.
I am nervous all the way through the national anthem and the first play. Once I get up and down the court a few times, it fades.
Each goal, each win, going to different buildings, the rivalries, the excitement – it is something. I try to catch myself, you know, in the warm-ups, when you’re on the line and the anthem and you get to some milestones and stuff. It’s such a neat experience.
Every band wants to be have a song that is that big, that will pretty much live on forever. I don’t know too many new bands that will have a ‘Free Bird’ that will be around 30 years later. It’s become a national anthem of sorts.
Players who take a knee during the national anthem do so to protest injustice across the country – fulfilling a patriotic duty to never accept injustice, but to call it out when we see it.
Anytime I sing the anthem, it is an honor and my heart beats out of my chest.
The thing about the national anthem is that it’s actually a pretty difficult song to sing for anybody.
A lot of people get upset by any protest – people taking a knee during the national anthem or raising a fist. As if we’re being disrespectful. Or rude to the national anthem or to our soldiers, you know what I’m saying? It’s deeper than that.
When you’re so close to winning and you have to stand on the podium and listen to someone else’s anthem, it leaves just a little bit of that bittersweet feeling.
I came from a military family, so there are a lot of things I think about when the anthem is playing.
I take a ton of pride in what our flag and our anthem stands for.
I feel unabashedly Indian, and this means that not just do I jump to my feet and sing along with the national anthem, it also makes me inexplicably sentimental, proud and teary-eyed.
We’re all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed’s ‘Chronicles’ in ‘Henry VI.’ Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’ embeds the French national anthem.
I believe it’s not 100 percent right to kneel during the national anthem, because you have to respect what many have done for this nation. I think kneeling prior to the anthem, like the Dallas Cowboys have done, is right.
When athletes take a knee during the National Anthem, we must ignore President Trump’s absurd claim that they’re ‘un-American’ and instead understand that it’s very American to peacefully protest systemic injustice.
‘Anthem’ was the record that almost didn’t get made for a completely different reason than ‘Underneath.’
I had lots of breaks. I guess the one that got my foot in the door was singing the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in ’74.
Now everybody has been doing the national anthem in their own style, but in 1968 I was the one that took the heat. It cut my career for quite a while.
I know these are going to sound like school reading-list suggestions, but if you like dystopian fiction, you should check out some of the originals: ‘Anthem,’ by Ayn Rand; ‘1984,’ by George Orwell; or ‘Brave New World,’ by Aldous Huxley.
For ‘The Anthem,’ a lot of my fans were like ‘Oh, man, he’s getting lazy making just, like, a pop format tune that everyone’s doing these days.’ But on this album, I wanted to write songs with vocals that would get stuck in my head, not just movements of instrumentals.
I’ve been to New Zealand before, many times. And of course it has a significance to me because I do have something that’s very special in New Zealand. I have ’10 Guitars,’ which is a very popular song, and I understand it’s like the second national anthem over there.
I felt bad about the controversy because they stopped playing my songs on American radio stations. But there was nothing wrong with what I did. Now everybody sings the national anthem the way they want.
I’ve always been a fan of Five For Fighting’s song ‘Superman.’ It’s like an anthem, and I love it.
I went to see England against Switzerland at Wembley with my dad and brother, too. That was in 2008, Fabio Capello’s first game in charge. Jermaine Jenas scored, and we won 2-1. I remember the national anthem was incredible. I sang it with pride – always do.
I feel that I had been rescued from the gutter by America. One day I was under the gutter, chased by police, thinking dogs were going to get me. I laid there listening to the dogs and the gutter. The next day, there I am standing on the Olympic platform, and you hear the anthem. I was proud.
Kneeling and gesturing, turning your back on the flag and disrespecting the national anthem is gross, self-indulgent and moronic.
The traditions of a nation are very important and the anthem written by Francis Scott Key in the early days of our nation should always be revered.
When Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the anthem, that’s both a sports story and a politics story.
The thing that I really love to do, that I now only do in the shower, is to sing the national anthem.
I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever.
I never went to war, but I served alongside some real heroes and grew deeply loyal to the service of those who fought and died. To me, as you might guess, the United States flag and National Anthem represent solemn reverence to combat veterans, the fallen and their families.
I’ve never been more nervous in my life than singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
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