We tell ourselves we don’t want concussions, we won’t overindulge in guac and chips, or that we’ll only have one drink. We say we will get back to our New Year’s resolutions - after the game, of course. Because, every year, the United States hits the pause button, indulges itself, and accepts a different set of national norms to enjoy the spectacle that is the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is escapism - grand entertainment of modern gladiatorial combat. It is our Reaping Day from the Hunger Games. Our modern-day Pantheon. The Grey Poupon of sporting events.
It is the nationally observed day where American football is the epicenter of all discussion and investment. Families and friends gather to see which teams will coordinate in a mixture of strategy and brutality to win a team sporting event.
We also gather to judge the boldest and most creative advertisements that nudge us to giggle, replay, and of course, engage with their brands.
How do we evaluate the job these marketers accomplish?
Should we focus on ROI metrics (that’s “return on investment” for anyone not hip to dated marketing lingo)?
Do we set up retinal scanners in living rooms across the nation to see if gramps passed out or stayed alert through the entirety?
Do we wait for the commercials to hit the music streaming service known as YouTube to see who gets the most views?
If so, is it all about click-thru rates on websites?
Cost per millie?
We think differently at the West Point Music Research Center and focus on another metric entirely. We hear the Super Bowl as a projection of our national identity. A day when the world watches America, and when we all collectively suspend the resolutions, bickering, and reality to listen.
Super Bowl 55 (LV in Roman numerals, because that’s a thing for some reason) in February of 2021 provided a fascinating test of our national will to suspend reality.
The country was still a little cagey about 2021 (the sequel to 2020).America had just emerged from an emotional election year. The word of the year was “misinformation;” immersed in an international pandemic. There was social unrest and rioting, and only weeks before, American citizens had gathered at the Capitol to engage in an event we are still coming to terms with today as a society.
A month and a day later, we paused the burdens of real life and adulting to scoop up Chex Mix and onion dip – it was time to watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the Kansas City Chiefs.
We listened to the pregame - typical stuff. It was whatever, nothing crazy. Probably a good thing, given the insanity that was 2020.
But then, there it was. The beginning of the advertisements and influence campaigns, some subtle, some deliberate. Some for products, others for peace.
An announcement from the CBS commentator said that the NFL was to “focus on racial justice through its inspired change initiative, and while progress has been made, we know we still have a ways to go. But anything can be accomplished, as said earlier, when you lead with love. And now, for a special presentation from the NFL. Let’s throw it to our PA announcer Alan Roach.”
Mr. Roach directed the 24,000 plus in live attendance and the 96.4 million viewers (the lowest viewership since 2007) to turn their attention to the video boards for a performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Penned in 1900 by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is often cited as the “Black National Anthem.”
***Time out - was the NFL suggesting that the path toward national unity and healing could be a path tread through music? Was the biggest kid in the locker room putting down their helmet to sing?***
Yes, it was precisely that.
The final spoken voice leading into the song said, “If we can come together as a people and understand what our history continues to teach us... that love will overcome all the fear.” Then Ms. Alicia Keys led “Lift Every Voice and Sing” with a choir backing and video of players protesting - images that were previously not championed by the NFL.
H.E.R followed with a performance of “America the Beautiful” with U.S. Service members behind H.E.R., implying the United States’ military might and resolve. Players and coaches watched and listened, some swaying back and forth.
The performance bled into a lyrical electric guitar solo when a man in a brown striped shirt behind Alicia Keys noticed that his beverage label was facing him and not the camera. He quickly adjusted and continued to rock out with everyone else so home audiences could enjoy the Cutwater Spirits Vodka Mule label. Hopefully, Cutwater Spirits sent him some free vodka mules later if he wasn’t paid at the time.
His vigilance to remain in-camera was notable, as obstacles such as flags threatened to cover his beverage’s label, motivating him to move into the shot as best as he could. The performance ended with his can raised above his head, the label still in frame.
Not all heroes wear capes. Some simply drink Cutwater Spirits.
Next was the joint service color guard from the Military District of Washington marching the colors into place to the sound of the U.S. Army Field Band drum cadence.
All of this pageantry set the stage for one of the most-tweeted-about moments of the modern Super Bowl era: the national anthem.
There have been moments when the event of playing the national anthem was patriotic through and through with a tie to military culture. For example, at Super Bowl 39, when the Joint Service Military Academy Choir was established, military heraldry was on full display for the minute and a half long anthem of 2016.
However, 2021 was not 2016.
In the West Point Music Research Center, the performance of the national anthem during the Super Bowl is a moment of national identity. A high-end bar song that embodies the rule of law, free will, democracy - and thanks to a predictable flyover - an auditory and visual reminder to other nations of our willingness to travel to promote such ideals.
According to Nielsen, the 2021 Super Bowl reached over 94 million viewers. A total of 68% of homes in the United States with televisions were tuned in to the event, ensuring most Americans would notice the national anthem performance, the game, and the commercials.
Unlike the National Anthem of Mexico, there is no mention of the national banners being drenched in the waves of blood. Nor is there mention of a “Fatherland” as there is in Russia’s national Anthem.
The most symbolic words within the U.S. anthem are lyrics celebrating “that our flag was still there,” after a conflict, which implies that the flag will always be there.
Any symbol (yes, songs can resonate and become symbols for populations) may have different context applied to it to reframe a narrative. The national anthem is no different from other symbols and has been used as protest since its inception.
Jose Feliciano interpreted the song with a groove that led to national backlash in the late 60s.
Jimi Hendrix played the song a few months later (a year after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed) at Woodstock, and was met with conservative national uproar and criticism.
Renowned for his guitar reverberation played to represent the sounds of war, Jimi Hendrix, a veteran of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, often wrote music as protest. The national anthem was another opportunity for him to express himself and by the time he played it at Woodstock, he had already performed it 70 times.
Hendrix, when asked, said, “All I did was play it... I’m American, so I played it... it’s not unorthodox. I thought it was beautiful.” He represented the nation's contradictions: a mixed-race man who had served his country honorably but still participated in counter-culture movements
In many ways, the anthem always represented American protest; and even has a history of representing black protest. Colin Kaepernick has been joined, through history, by Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in 1996, Toni Smith and Deidra Chatman in 2003, Tommie Smith and John Carlos in 1968, Lloyd Eaton and team in 1969, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 70s, and on and on.
The poem for the song was written in 1814, and the instrumental arrangement for “The Star-Spangled Banner” was initially a British song for a gentlemen’s club. Using the arrangement was met with some controversy, as, “The song eluded to alcohol consumption and love in the last line of the first stanza.”
By 1931, Congress passed the song as the National Anthem.
The history of the song is a history of American protest. During the First World War, Americans often refused to stand during the national anthem to protest conscription. That was not the last time such an action, or inaction, was used to demonstrate protest during the anthem. Countless celebrities, athletes, musicians, and other artists and activists have protested the song or interpreted it to protest a myriad of topics, often directly related to America’s national identity and ideals.
These are fundamental ideas. They define us as a nation. And whom we choose to perform the song (or sometimes who chooses to perform it through their own agency) often speaks to how we see ourselves as Americans.
Whom do we trust with the keys to this projection? We currently trust Jay-Z. After several examples of musical misfires, the NFL entered into an agreement with artist Jay-Z’s vast Roc Nation.
What makes America the country that it is?
What is it that continues to drive us forward?
We see our leaders come and go, celebrities rise and fall, our wars begin and end - but our people thrive.
Our nation prospers. Despite our flaws, people seek us out as the shining light on the hill, despite the failings.
More than anything else, America represents art and expression. The freedom to express ourselves in the manners of our choosing. The freedom to come together on a single day every year to watch a game that may mean more than most of us would openly admit to our fellow Americans, let alone ourselves.
Even the NFL knows that music can help us heal and unite. Combined, the airtime spent on “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “America the Beautiful,” the color guard and the national anthem was the equivalent to 16, 30-second advertising spots. Each of those spots cost $5.6 million. The value sacrificed to play those songs was roughly $89 million. Those numbers don’t even include the halftime show.
Researchers have found that qualitative research demonstrates what we all know innately. We listen to music to help express ourselves when we break up, marry, work out, feel joy, boredom, love, and the range of human emotions. Music has also been applied to affect “Heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen consumption decease…” And it has been applied to treat trauma.
The message from the NFL is clear: music is impactful and essential.
The Superbowl is a cornerstone of American national identity. At its core is the national anthem: a symbol of freedom, protest, and the ideals that all Americans are exposed to - the ideals that define our nation.
Maj. Ashley Franz Holzmann is a horror writer, satirist, entrepreneur, poet, artist, and Psychological Operations Officer in the U.S. Army Special Operations community.
Capt. Eric T. Kim is serving as an Instructor of American Politics at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He commissioned as an infantry officer in 2012 and earned his bachelor’s degree in systems engineering at the United States Military Academy. He also earned a master’s degree in political science from Duke University in 2021.
Maj. Sean McKnight is a 2007 graduate of the United States Military Academy and completed his M.A. in international relations at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in 2017. Major McKnight has served in a variety of leadership and staff positions from the platoon to theater army level with experience in Europe, Africa, and East Asia, and deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sgt. Maj. Denver D. Dill is a course director for the United States Military Academy Social Sciences Department course Music & Influence. He is a member of the West Point Band and a graduate of the Juilliard School and Eastern Kentucky University.
