I was feeling the need to blog about this, but thought I’d check to see if I’d written something about this before. Turns out I did, and it was at this exact same point in the NFL season: the weekend of the conference championship games. But my previous post was about a difference facet. Today I’m talking about etiquette.

It is considered rude to sing along to the national anthem when someone else is singing it. The U.S. Code Title 4 Chapter 1 is about the U.S. Flag, how it should be handled and displayed and how it should be addressed when presented when the national anthem is sung. It says how to stand and what to do while the national anthem is sung, but it doesn’t talk about the singing along element.

During the national anthem that was sung before the Colts-Patriots game, not only could you clearly hear people singing along, but the cheering began as early as the “rockets’ red glare.” I think that’s rather rude and an insult to the singer. Why have some special singer come in when you’re not going to listen to more than half of their song?

Was it the custom in times gone by for the audience to stand and sing it together? If so, when did the custom begin of having a guest soloist?

My thought: either be quiet and let the singer sing or else stop bringing in soloists and have the audience sing instead. Both at once is bad etiquette.

To end on a positive note, at least both of the soloists today sang the national anthem with a minimum of those frivolous embellishments that are so irritating.

[tags]national anthem, sports, etiquette[/tags]