It was a national anthem massacre at the World Series, when six-time grammy nominated singer Eric Burton forgot the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” while opening up Game 1 of the World Series between the Phillies and Astros.
Burton a 33-year old Texas native, who is the lead singer for the band, The Black Pumas, delivered a performance of the national anthem on Friday night riddled with lyrical errors and moments of being off-pitch.
During the pre-game ceremony at Minute Maid Park in Houston, as players lined the field and a gigantic American flag was draped across the outfield, Burton only was one line into the anthem before raising some eyebrows.
“What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last streaming,” Burton sang instead of the correct word, “gleaming.”
After moving on and correctly singing “Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,” he backtracked to the previous mistake, again singing, “What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last streaming.”
The crowd didn’t seem too affected by the singer’s lyrical mishaps and gave him a round of applause as he finished up the remainder of the anthem mistake-free.
There were mixed reactions on Twitter. Some felt empathetic towards Burton, while others were shocked he messed up the lyrics.
“It’s more than a little nerve-wracking being out there. Yeah, he erred. Big deal. He honored all the rest very, very well.. and sang the most of it strong and beautiful,” one Tweet read.
“Eric Burton just sang the National Anthem in four different keys, with three different tempos, and rearranged half the words.” another Twitter user wrote.
Simply wasn’t important to him. He doesn’t care.
If you accept the job, do it right. Shameful.
Leave it up to a SFN to screw it up. There were plenty of other choices. I wonder if he knows the south african national anthem, burn, loot and murder while the dance around a fire with a spear.