Normally I don’t have much patience for glurge. Touching tales of sad children’s wishes miraculously granted leave me dry-eyed. That old chestnut of a song, “Scarlett Ribbons (For Her Hair)” is the kind of sicky-sweet sentimental pap that leaves me cold. Okay, so Harry Belafonte did a nice version of it, way back when; but it was never a great song to begin with, and it’s been flogged to death by many, many singers (hello, Wayne Newton) over the years.
So this evening, as I was driving along I happened to tune into “A Prairie Home Companion” just in time to hear a woman’s voice begin to sing that song. Sing it a capella save for a bit of lute-like accompaniment near the end; sing it sweet and plain and straight, unembellished with swooning strings or hokey sentimental overkill; sing it with quiet honest feeling that pierced right past my crusty cynical defenses into my heart. Yeh, I choked up; yeh, my eyes were wet by the end of it. Damn – she got me.
I didn’t catch the singer’s name; looking online at tonight’s lineup, I think it was Heather Masse. Whoever it was, she has the touch of an angel* in her voice.
And it kills me to say it. I HATE getting gotten by glurge. But by gum, got I was.
*Obligatory glurgery.
ETA: And of course I messed up the poll question; should’ve been: Do you hate glurge?
Sure I hate glurge. But everyone defines it differently; one person’s glurge can be another person’s emotionally affecting moment.
Reminds me: Yes, I still feel sorry for the lamp!*
Sometimes, even though I know I’m being manipulated, I can’t help but feel my heartstrings humming.
*You know. The IKEA commercial about buying a new lamp where the guy says you are crazy for feeling sorry for the thrown away lamp.
Well, turns out I was wrong about the singer’s identity. Just checked the Prairie Home Companion website and discovered it was Renee Fleming. Who knew an opera singer could nail a pop glurgefest so magnificently? And without sounding like an opera singer slumming it?
Renee Fleming even sang on the “Return of the King” soundtrack. She has recorded a wide range of material, although she is. primarily. an opera singer.
I hate one particular type with the thousand suns option: “True” stories that are passed along from email to email as “true” stories even though you’d think a twelve year old of average IQ and public education should be able to figure out “this can’t have actually happened”.
The rest is just light bulbs.
If it makes you feel better, I got teary-eyed at a cold medicine commercial the other day. I was like, WTF, this is for cold medicine.
I also got snookered by this one, but they were trying for emotional gutbusting so I don’t think it counts.
Nothing moves me except when the dog comes home. This probably reflects badly on me.