Indiana woman flubs lyrics to the national anthem. Find out what threw her off

The viral anthem performances keep coming.

A video of a Greenwood woman flubbing the words to the U.S. national anthem during a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump is one of the latest.

Sarah Janisse Brown fumbled the lyrics “o’er the ramparts we watched” March 2 during a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.

But the mother of 15 was chipper about the ordeal.

“When I made the mistake, I was like, ‘Oh, no,'  but I recovered as quickly as I could,” Brown said.

'People are so cruel'

The mistake was captured by Right Side Broadcasting Network then viewed more than one million times after being posted to an X account where more than 1,000 commenters poked fun.

“People are so cruel it’s inhumane. But I don’t take it personally. They hate Trump, but they don’t know me,” said Brown, 47, founder of the Fun-Schooling Movement, an educational method to help children with dyslexia, ADHD, autism and other learning challenges.

The campaign had contacted her Wednesday in hopes of getting her daughter, Anna Miriam Brown, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter. The daughter declined and recommended Brown.

In prepping, Brown, who’d never sang in front of a large crowd, came across the Feb. 26 Pacers game performance of 8-year-old Kinsley Murray, which went viral with commenters comparing her rendition to that of Fergie’s from the 2018 NBA All-Star Game.

“I noticed how hard people are on mistakes, I also saw that a lot of people mess up at the worst moment,” she said. “I thought to myself, this event has the potential to be the most embarrassing moment of my life if I mess up, but I took the risk anyway.”

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Why Greenwood woman messed up 'Star Spangled Banner' lyrics

She’d grown up singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” so she didn’t have to learn the words.

But the surprise of spotting her son and his family from Pennsylvania — she hadn’t been sure they would make it to see her sing — threw her off, Brown said.

“I saw them and my mind went blank on the word ‘ramparts,’” she said.

“I laughed so hard I cried reading the comments on X. It was funny to see the comments where people were trying to figure out what I was saying in place of  ‘ramparts,’” she said.

“There's so many people who have made the same kind of mistakes, and I really just think that people need to get out there and do their best and take risks and not be so afraid of failure. And when you do make a mistake and almost a million people are laughing at you, you’ve just got to laugh with them.”

Brown, campaign director for Indiana gubernatorial candidate Jamie Reitenour, got a rousing round of applause and met Trump after the performance.

“He was so gracious, and told me three times that I sang the anthem beautifully,” she said. “I felt sorry for messing it up, but he was so kind.”

This isn’t the first time Brown has made headlines following a campaign event.

A week prior to the Trump rally her Tesla helped identify a woman suspected of breaking into cars outside of a Beech Grove church.

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter: @cherylvjackson.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana woman's national anthem flub at Trump event goes viral