Episode 3: On Time

Whitney Houston Sings the Star-Spangled Banner, 1991 

In 1991 a 27-year old Whitney Houston opened Super Bowl XXV with a rendition of the US National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner sung in four beats per measure - 4/4, a metre common to Southern Gospel and Soul music, rather than the song’s traditional 3 beats per measure - 3/4, a metre typical to the Waltz and other classical European compositions. The words and notes are the same, and yet in form and context its completely different.  Against the backdrop of the first Gulf War and rising domestic tensions around race and policing that would inevitably boil over the following year, this simple shift in structure dramatically changed the meaning of the song and its understanding of nationalism.