Jazz singer upsets many by changing the lyrics

DENVER (MyFOXColorado.com) - Some were simply confused. Others, immediately offended.

A local jazz performer caused a stir at Denver mayor John Hickenlooper’s State of the City address Tuesday by replacing the lyrics of the National Anthem with those of the so-called Black National Anthem.

The city asked Rene Marie, an African-American, to sing the Star Spangled Banner before Tuesday’s speech.

However, unbeknownst to all but a handful of people in the crowd -not including the mayor- she replaced the lyrics of the traditional National Anthem with “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson: a song commonly referred to as the “Black National Anthem” by those familiar with it.

“If anyone has a right to be angry it is probably me,” says Mayor John Hickenlooper. “I guess what I feel most is deeply disappointed.”

Hickenlooper says Marie has apologized.

“What she said was that she was very sorry, she did not mean any disrespect, that she was trying to make a creative expression for her love of the country.”

Watch video of the performance

The mayor says no one knew what Rene Marie had planned.

“She said there was only herself, her husband, and her musical mentor were the only three people in that room that knew she was going to do this hybrid of two songs together,” Hickenlooper said.

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LIFT EV’RY VOICE AND SING
also known as “The Black National Anthem”
by James Weldon Johnson

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.