Sing

So I read over at Shatnerian's about this senior's choir called Young @ Heart that sings contemporary(ish) songs such as 'I Want to Be Sedated', 'Stayin' Alive', etc.   As John says the result is quirky and wonderful.

I went to youtube myself to see more of their songs and I came across 'Downtown'.  The lyrics were so shockingly age appropriate that it seemed as if their entire generation had claimed such ownership that no one under 70 would ever be allowed to sing this song.

I'm thinking how interesting it is when songs are transplanted.  We've all heard covers of songs put into different context - move it out of their original music genre or culture which puts a different twist on the lyrics and music  This definately does the same, by giving a song over to a different generation, it puts it into a whole different light.  The reality of and 80 year old how has a lot of history and maybe not so much time, gives these songs a beautiful new meaning.   Especially the next song I watched was Coldplay's 'Fix'.  As stated on the youtube description, there's a rather sad story behind this performance.

The performer here is Fred Knittle, who suffers from congestive heart failure. This song was intended to be a duet between Fred and another chorus member, Bob Salvini. Sadly, Bob died of a heart attack and it was left to Fred to carry the song on his own.

Other songs, however, merely have a charm because of how oddly displaced the words in the mouths of seniors, including, ironically enough, David Bowie's 'Golden Years'.  But that's not to discount the wonderfulness of hearing 'I Will Survive' on a violin.