Oh, say can we replace this song?

"The Star Spangled-Banner," musically speaking, is not a good song.

Why do I say this?

Did you hear Christina Aguilera's version before Super Bowl XLV? She is the latest talented singer to maul the tune. Not only did she forget the words at one point, but she also mangled the melody in an attempt to win style points and/or recover from the lyrical error.

Our national anthem has clunky lyrics that don't exactly roll off the tongue. Frank Sinatra wouldn't be able to smooth out the words. To make matters worse, the melody isn't, well, much of a melody. When compared with "America the Beautiful," the SSB is melodically challenged. If it weren't our anthem, and symbolic of something larger than just a song, it would be difficult to sit through without covering your ears.

Sports stadiums aren't great venues for artists to showcase their vocal abilities. Recent halftime shows at Super Bowls have been peppered with production problems that make the performers sound off. The anthem in particular is almost always on the brink of disaster. The only exception I can recall is Robert Merrill at Yankee Stadium. For whatever reason, the opera singer nailed it almost every time. Or at least nailed it as much as it could be nailed, and did so before countless games and other events in New York.

Every time someone botches the anthem, there is a group of people who thinks they did it intentionally out of some kind of ego-driven need to be disrespectful. In most cases, I don't think that is true. I do think, however, that the song is a lemon that needs to be replaced.

Wins should dictate where Super Bowl is played

While I am a native New Yorker and fan of most Big Apple teams, I don't believe today's decision to play the 2014 Super Bowl in the new billion-dollar stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands is a wise one.

This will be the first Super Bowl played in a cold-weather city without a domed stadium. Being that the game will be played in February, weather conditions are likely to be miserable, which is why the NFL has always stuck to host cities like Tampa, Miami and San Diego or played in domes to showcase its final game of the season.

Anything in New York tends to draw extra attention and extra money. Like with most things, the bottom line probably had a lot to do with today's decision by the NFL.

If the Super Bowl is now going to be played anywhere and everywhere, I would like to see one other change. I suggest allowing the higher-seeded team to host the game, essentially giving home field advantage to the franchise with the best record, as is done for all of the other postseason games in football and other sports. Season-ticket holders of both teams would have first shot at Super Bowl tickets, thereby keeping out some of the corporate types who tend to fill too many seats at most Super Bowls. The game would have the same dynamics as the conference championships, with true fans rooting for their teams.

Who are you?

This is The Who, intact and at their height of creative energy and musicianship. Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Pete Townshend -- each rock legends in their own right. Two of the four are dead now. In fact, Moon has been dead for decades. But make no mistake about it, the late Keith Moon (drums) and John Entwistle (bass) were every bit as important to The Who as Daltrey (vocals) and Townshend (guitar). You can't say that about a lot of bands where the rhythm sections can be replaced without much notice from average fans.

Because half the band is six feet under, I hesitate to refer to the group that played at the Super Bowl in Miami yesterday as The Who. When Jimmy Page and Robert Plant briefly toured together after their famed Led Zeppelin days were long over, they simply referred to their new act as Page & Plant. And they picked appropriate venues to play in where they didn't need to fill the room with unbridled energy and laser-like precision. They sounded fine, played in a more subtle manner and connected with audiences. They drew heavily on their Zeppelin roots, performed a lot of the old songs, but updated appropriately to the times and to their latest band configuration and aging vocal cords.

The remaining members of The Who tried to pull off something that doesn't play to their strengths anymore. There is nothing Woodstock-ish about a football game run by corporations. In fact, the Super Bowl halftime show is a tough gig for any musician. The production problems alone are a nightmare. The only truly super Super Bowl musical performance I recall was turned in by Prince a few years ago. And I am not a big Prince fan.

It's tough to make a frantic 15-minute performance into something that is artful and true to the music. Most Super Bowl halftime shows are as much about the eye candy as the songs. That challenge and risk are fine for bands of lesser historic status, but groups like The Who shouldn't open themselves up to all the AARP jokes by being a part of this spectacle, especially with somewhat diminished skills. I still like seeing the old guys playing, and enjoy the old tunes, but in a more appropriate setting The Who would have fared much better. Give me Roger and Pete at Wolf Trap on a summer night in front of a few thousand folks and I am sure I'd have a far different take on their performance.

Of course, if you give me the choice of watching The Who or T-Pain at halftime, I will take The Who every single time. I don't care if Pete and Roger come out in wheel chairs and hearing aids. OK, that would be a little sad, but it would still be music.