Tip-Off Timer: '83 Was a Decent Year to Get It on Through the Grapevine

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 NBA season. On Wednesday, there are exactly 83 days left.

In honor of the 83 days, I was going to bring you the 83 best National Anthems ever sung, in YouTube form. Then I remembered that all of them are dull and stupid and boring and horrible compared to the sensual heat that Marvin Gaye wrought on our ears in 1983. But it's important to put this important musical moment in some historical perspective -- on February 13, 1983, Gaye stepped into the Forum and shattered America's mind with his performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner." You know that. But do you realize that this was less than six months before he ever performed again?

Or that it was just over a year before Gaye was tragically shot by his father? Or that, just two years before, he had been washed up, finished, etc., and managed a pretty improbable comeback to win his first two Grammys? Well, now you do.

And that's why his All-Star Game performance means so much: It was a special moment in the life of a special performer that the NBA happened to catch at the perfect time.

Now, it would be impossible to ignore, as well, the amazing quality of a recent Team USA commercial, filmed to the same performance (if you're strictly audio and the kind of jerkstore who somehow doesn't want to listen to this twice, feel free to skip):

And finally, just because I love music and I love Marvin Gaye, his 1983 performance from the Grammys (again, his first ever win, WTF!) where he shredded Sexual Healing during the same month of R&B fire as the ASG.