If you’re ever going to mess up the words to our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, you prolly should do so at a minor event where you will minimize your embarrassment and hopefully escape media attention. Unfortunately for Christina Aguilera, that was not the case. In front of her largest audience ever, Xtina flubbed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner in front of the largest television viewing audience of the year at Super Bowl XLV yesterday. Today, Xtina issues a statement that doesn’t really apologize for the error, nor does it really acknowledge that an error was made. See her flubbed performance and read her statement below

Christina Aguilera says she flubbed a line as she belted out the national anthem at the start of the Super Bowl after getting lost in the moment and losing her place. She says in a statement, “I got so lost in the moment of the song that I lost my place. I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of it’s anthem still came through.” When she was supposed to sing the line “O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming,” she instead repeated an earlier line, with a slight variation. She sang “What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming,” which is the same line from earlier in the song but with the word ‘watched’ instead of ‘hailed.’ The mistake immediately set social networks abuzz with people commenting on the error.

In case you missed it or just want to watch it again, here is Xtina‘s erroneous performance of the national anthem:

In her defense, Xtina has successfully sung the national anthem many times before so we do know that she knows the words to the song. This is proof that even a seasoned performer can let nerves and excitement affect them no matter how many performances they have done in their career. Many folks are giving her credit for singing live and not lip-syncing but that to me doesn’t mean much. It is usually the norm for these performances to be pre-recorded and then played during the actual broadcast. Most famously, Whitney Houston performed to a pre-recorded track back in 1991 at Super Bowl XXV and it became a hit song after it was released in the wake of a wave of national pride during the first Gulf War:


It is for reasons like Xtina‘s mistake that the song is usually pre-recorded. Messing up the lyrics to one of the most difficult songs to sing EVER is understandable … but when it happens on such a large stage as the Super Bowl, well, you kinda just have to facepalm yourself and go Oh My Gawd! I, personally, am not a big fan of the way Xtina adds her “flourishes” when she sings. I, personally, do not find it impressive when she exaggerates lines while belting out songs. Absent the flub, I still wasn’t that particularly impressed with her performance over all. What do y’all think of Xtina‘s eff up … is it a big deal to you?

[Photo credit: Wireimage; Source]