The country music star Ingrid Andress became one of many high-profile singers who have had trouble pulling off “The Star-Spangled Banner” when she sang it during Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game festivities before a capacity crowd at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Monday night.
On Tuesday, after video clips of her pitch-challenged version were shared widely on social media for all the wrong reasons, Ms. Andress offered an explanation for the flub on her Instagram account.
“I was drunk last night,” she wrote. “I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need. That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is! I hear it’s super fun.”
Ms. Andress, 32, broke through to a wide audience in 2020 thanks largely to the ballad “More Hearts Than Mine” from her first album, “Lady Like.” Her debut also earned her nominations in best new artist categories from the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Grammys Awards. In 2021, Ms. Andress had a second hit, “Wishful Drinking,” a duet with Sam Hunt.
Ms. Andress’s version of the national anthem, which was performed before M.L.B.’s annual Home Run Derby, generated a lot of chatter online on Monday, with many people on social media posting clips of the Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm, who was seen smirking as he was apparently trying to suppress a laugh while standing at attention among his fellow ballplayers on the field.
She began the song with no instrumental backing and took it at an especially slow tempo. By the time she hit the phrase “through the perilous fight,” she seemed to be having trouble staying on pitch. Even so, the audience broke out into applause when she concluded the phrase “our flag was still there.”
Long before Ms. Andress offered an explanation for her performance, some fans came to her defense.
“She doesn’t know this right now, but she just became an icon,” Matt Rogers, the comedian and co-host of the pop culture podcast Las Culturistas, said on TikTok last night. “She can book WeHo Pride next year,” he added, referring to the annual gay pride celebration in West Hollywood, Calif.
Ms. Andress is by no means the first professional singer to struggle through the anthem, which has a tricky melody adapted from an 18th-century British ballad known as “The Anacreontic Song.”
In 2018, Fergie was criticized for her version of the song at the N.B.A. All-Star Game. Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors was caught laughing on camera, a reaction that became a meme on social media.
Jewel’s version at last year’s Indianapolis 500 drew a decidedly mixed reaction. And Roseanne Barr infamously screeched her way through the anthem in 1990 before a San Diego Padres game at Jack Murphy Stadium, earning a mix of boos, jeers, laughter and applause.
Part of the complexity of “The Star-Spangled Banner” lies in its wide melodic range, according to Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and professor at the Berklee College of Music. He noted that the song features arpeggios that leap over notes, along with chromatic notes that don’t naturally occur in the major scale.
“You’ve got to pitch the first line right, and you’ve got to think ahead to hitting ‘red glare’ and ‘land of the free,’ the two highest notes,” Mr. Bennett said. “And if you start it wrong, you’re kind of doomed.”
The song, he added, is “almost twice as wide, from bottom to top, in terms of pitch range” as the British national anthem, “God Save the King.” The challenge increases for singers who attempt it in a packed stadium.
Speaking of Ms. Andress’s performance, Mr. Bennett said, “In my opinion, she made the classic mistake of starting it too high. She probably didn’t have a very good monitor mix, which is why her pitching was off, and there was no accompaniment, so she had no way to get back on track.”
“Sadly,” he continued, “you can hear her despair increasing as the performance goes on.”
Ms. Andress and her representatives did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Read More: After a National Anthem Flub, Singer Says She’s Going to Rehab
