Are you ready for some football....music?

The National Anthem offered a particularly odd partnership — Aaron Neville and Dr. John (in a tribute to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans) with Detroit favorite Aretha Franklin. Neville sang half of the song in his feathery-soft voice, then was never heard from again when Franklin blew the dome's roof off. - complete article

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter The birds flew off with the fallout shelter Eight miles high and falling fast It landed foul on the grass The players tried for a forward pass With the jester on the sidelines in a cast Now the halftime air was sweet perfume While sergeants played a marching tune We all got up to dance Oh, but we never got the chance

'Cause the players tried to take the field, The marching band refused to yield. Do you recall what was revealed, The day the music died? We started singing Bye, bye miss American Pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry And good ol' boys were drinking whisky and rye? Singing this will be the day that I die this will be the day that I die .

Football halftimes are for players to have a short respite from their labors and to endure a lecture of how badly they sucked in the first half. Football halftime entertainment is meant to be a background distraction while we fans alternately unfill and refill. Football halftimes used to mean watching uniformed college marching bands playing John Philip Sousa tunes or, if the bandleader was feeling randy, a Burt Bacharach number (Raindrops Are Falling on My Head). Smart formations, nothing earthshaking, but nice, comfortable. Keith Jackson halftimes. And games were preficed with standard, if mundane, renditions of our national anthem.

But that was too square, so we were given "Up With People" shows of painfully happy young people dancing around with colorful streamers while singing about how wonderful the world could be if we would only sing together. Am I the only person who ever, if only for a brief moment, wanted to take an AK-47 and wipe out the entire population of those mindless smiling idiots? I'm not sure when they finally stopped the 'UP' movement, but it existed so long that I avoided halftimes like the plague (although, I must admit I have never actively avoided the plague, so that may not be an apt statement to make).

When I checked back, the national anthem had become the first American Idol format, a stage for any artist to showoff his/her 'soulfulness' with each gut wrenching final verse - even if the correct words frequently eluded them. But even that wasn't enough. Now, because halftime is showcase time (blame rests squarely on the New Year's Day bowl committees), mega rock stars, wannabees and has-beens Milli Vanilli their way through 20-30 minutes of music you can't hear, staged so ridiculously that the music isn't even the point.

So why am I going to watch this Sunday's pre-game and halftime? Because I'm shamelessly curious. The anthem is to be sung by Aaron Neville, his mole and Aretha Franklin. Other pre-game music will feature Dr. John (no, not John Ryan, Ph.D.) and Stevie Wonder. The Rolling Stones have the daunting task of appearing relevant at the break. I'm luke-warm on the badboys at this stage of their career, but they've got to be light years ahead of Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson. Here's hoping anyway.