America Betrayed

Last night I ran out and bought a string of pearls just so I would have something to clutch as I ponder the profound horror that Beyonce may have lip-synched “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the inauguration.

Just writing that last sentence made me pull my office trash can over and vomit into it. Beyonce completely disgraced America and the president. I felt very cheated by the performance I watched for free. I was also disillusioned. You mean there might be (sob) artifice in certain works of art?! That sometimes something isn’t as real as we’d like it to be?! That every move by a pop singer might not be infallibly authentic?!

Now I don’t believe in anything. How can I when all around me … is lies?!

I am devastated. I have never before heard of any performer not singing live. I look back over what this implies about our shared cultural heritage and I feel the deep chill of disillusionment. You’re telling me when the record skipped during Milli Vanilli’s performance, it was a recording and not one of them doing a remarkable ventriloquism impression of a record scratch? You’re suggesting that when Prince sang a medley of his hits on an awards show while chewing gum, he wasn’t just really good at multitasking? And when Oasis performed on Top of the Pops and the Gallagher brothers switched vocals and instruments, they didn’t just have uncannily similar voices? You mean it’s not always real?!?

I feel personally betrayed retroactively by every performer. I demand an apology, not only from Beyonce, but from everyone in the entertainment industry. I can no longer enjoy music.

I do hold onto a glimmer of hope that Beyonce did not cheapen America and lip-synch. I have spent many hours analyzing the video of the national anthem with the same scrutiny that investigators gave to the Zapruder film. It is far too soon to draw any conclusions, and will require weeks of close study, but there is still a possibility that Beyonce did actually sing live. Now that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has concluded hearing testimony on Benghazi, I hear it will turn its attention to this matter of national importance.

Even now in the United States, brother fights brother on whether or not Beyonce was actually singing. We weigh the evidence and ponder the far-reaching consequences of the truth. Due to this debate, we have never been more divided in our country’s history — not even during the Civil War.

I can’t stop crying. America died.