You cant get rich by working
And love doesn't last forever
In the public sauna they never ask
If it's ok to throw water on the stove
Old forests are cut down and turned into toilet paper
And still all the toilets are out of paper
We always lose to Sweden in hockey and Eurovision
Christmas season always starts earlier every year
Why do people never agree with me?
--The Helsinki Complaints Choir |
Do you sing? I'm not talking about in the shower, by yourself, but do you
ever just belt out a tune,in public? I never really sang much in my early
life. It always felt strange, and sometimes the feedback I'd see others
get who sang would confirm my suspicions that it was a strange thing to do.
This all changed the day I moved to another home at the age of 13.
These people who I moved in with were fundamentalist baptists, and the first
thing that struck me as strange about them is how they would sing. Without
embarrassment.
They'd sing on the way to church. They'd sing at sunday school.
They'd sing at prayer meeting. They'd sing at friday night youth group.
They'd sing during the sunday service. They'd sing on the way home from
church. The songs were always sort of simple, about how jesus loved them,
or the glories awaiting them in heaven or other such wholesome things.
Well, the religion never really took, I'm afraid to say. They basically had
to trick me into getting "saved" by telling me I was joining some exclusive
club or something, but I think all of that singing made it's mark on me.
It wasn't long that I was singing too, even joining the church youth choir.
Ok I didn't really have a choice about joining that choir, it was mandatory
for me. But the brainwashing must have took.
Just give me Arethra Franklin or Lauren Hill singing "Oh Happy Day", and
although the religion behind it is a bit fuzzy for me, it still will fill
me with an energetic vibration and before you know it, I'll be singing and
stomping right along with them. Well, thank JVH-1 for the singing at all of
those services, I guess. Otherwise, my terrible teenage angst may have
just expanded to a critical mass and caused me to explode. As it was, I
sort of just went along to get along, til I grew the balls to run away at
the age of 15, to a much more secular, and yes, happier life.
I can't really sing that well though. I'm not tone deaf or anything, but
I wouldn't rate myself as a particularly good singer. Come to think of it,
they did seat me next to my tone deaf foster cousin in that choir, so I guess I may be
worse than I thought. Just to let you know, because I don't want to start
getting invitations to your internet glee club or anything. Ok?
But this looks like fun. The Helsinki Complaints Choir (quicktime .mov file).
Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected
the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed
this choral work around the list of complaints. I gather this has become a
traveling show, with the list of complaints growing and being cataloged, no
doubt.
Here is a write up of the event at Kiasma.
Ahh well. To think of what might of been. What if I'd moved in with a
bunch of angst ridden Finns,instead of pseudo-happy baptists, and been forced
to sing their rants along with them. Who knows where that would have taken
me?
Perhaps I'll write a song about it.
Hat tip to WFMU's Beware The Blog, a great source for weirdness in music on the interweb.
