Aretha Franklin's Thanksgiving national anthem was really, really long

Note to self: If Aretha Franklin sings the national anthem at the next Super Bowl, bet the over.

Franklin, one of the greatest singers ever, sang the national anthem before the Detroit Lions’ home game against the Minnesota Vikings. That’s a pretty good get for the Lions before their big Thanksgiving game.

Franklin sat at her piano, adjusted the microphone … and sang the anthem for about four minutes. It seemed even longer.

CBS had fun and jokes about the rendition of the anthem:

The anthem generally takes about half that long, or less. OddsShark said before Super Bowl 50 that the average time of the previous 10 Super Bowl national anthems was 1:57 (yes, for the uninformed, Las Vegas offers prop bets on how long the Super Bowl anthem will be). And singers generally take a little extra time at the Super Bowl, when performing for 100 million people or so. Franklin sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XL with Aaron Neville, also at Ford Field, and the time was an efficient 2:08 according to OddsShark. Apparently when she’s solo she feels like stretching it out a bit.

And you know others had jokes.

And there were a few who reminded people that Franklin has earned the right to sing the anthem twice as long as normal if she pleases.

Say this about Franklin’s rendition: It was more memorable than most anthems we’ve heard.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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