Brandi Carlile explains why she is “worried” about Super Bowl performance
Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, who is set to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ at the Super Bowl on February 9th, has admitted she is “worried” about the performance.
The championship game of the 2025 NFL season will see the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots face off at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Speaking with Variety two days before her worldwide television performance, the American musician admitted that she is “a little worried about” the performance: “I put it in a key that’s right at the ceiling there for me, and so I’m gonna come out swinging.”
Reminiscing about her relationship with the important song, Carlile recalled, “I was invited to the White House when Obama was president to sing on the lawn on the 4th of July, and Brandon Flowers [frontman of the Killers] sang it.”
When the interviewer probed the deeper, political meaning of the song, Carlile had her own take on what it represents, gesturing toward a “fragile hope, love and belief in where it could be, and acknowledging where it’s been, and acknowledging that we’re not there yet.”
She went on, “And that’s what I think is so American about that song — that total celebration is not in order; that our prayers are still in order. But that the only way to move forward is with belief.”
Looking at the present reality in America, Carlile added, “I think if we’re gonna save this country as a people, we have to be reminded on some level that deep down we love it.”
The musical segments of the Super Bowl this year represent a weighted political back-and-forth coming to a head; Bad Bunny will be the first male solo Latin artist to perform at the halftime slot, as well as the first to perform their show entirely in Spanish.
In response, Donald Trump has lashed out at the decision to platform the Grammy-winning musician, deeming the choice “crazy” as he had “never heard of” Bad Bunny, while Kristi Noem has promised that ICE agents will be attending the event.
Additionally, pop-punk band Green Day will open the biggest night in sports, and recently used their set at the Super Bowl pre-party to send a message to ICE.
As such, Carlile was asked why she had decided to participate in the patriotic event. She responded: “I have my own moral code, my own moral imperative, that I have to answer to at the end of the day, as a wife and mother, and I believe in my ability and responsibility to do this, and that’s why I’m her.”
Carlile finished, “The throughline to being queer and being a representative of a marginalized community and being put on the largest stage in America to acknowledge the fraught and tender hope that this country is based on, it’s something you don’t say no to. You do it.“
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