Ok people, here’s the deal: Yes, Beyonce was lip syncing at the Inauguration. She’s also performing at the Superbowl halftime show in two weeks. You know what she’s going to do there? Lip sync.

Before we let the righteous indignation boil over let’s slow it down a sec and remember that nobody really sings live at these types of events. Nobody. Not Kesha, not Lady Gaga, and not Beyonce. Maybe Alicia Keys. But probably not even her. It doesn’t mean they can’t sing. (Even Lady Gaga can sing—if you don’t believe me, listen to her sing her ass off here.)

There’s just too much at stake at an event this big to leave anything to chance. The chances of having a screwy mic cable or something going wrong with the equipment are probably higher than Beyonce hitting a clunker, and with that many people watching, no one is willing to take a chance like that when they have the technology not to. Hell, Jay-Z would probably lip sync if he had to hit notes and the words weren’t going by too fast to pull it off.

Underscoring the ubiquity of lip syncing, The Times got a hold of a spokeswoman for the Marine Corp Band who said, “We pre-recorded all music as a matter of course and have done since time immemorial. This is our 54th inauguration… There is no question of there not being any music – it’s not because the performer cannot do it.”

Ok, so maybe lip syncing since “time immemorial” is an exaggeration, but you get the point.