Songs in the Minor Key

Really good friends will stand by you, even if you should bomb on karaoke night they will clap and cheer, though they might not ask for an encore. I usually avoid karaoke like the plague. My singing as been described as a cross between a syncopated Tom Waits, an atonal Bob Dylan and a collection piercing death wails of animals in extreme pain.   

I think an event that puts my singing in perspective happened one Saturday night at the Irish Pub in Somerdale NJ. The pub itself was an ancient structure built close to the road and when the road was expanded out into a four lane highway over 60 years ago the pub was separated by less than 3 feet of sidewalk from Route 30. Facing the highway were two large picture windows and at times it was difficult to tell where the traffic ended and the bar began.

In that part of Jersey there was a local Rugby league and after a weekend game they would celebrate, commiserate or ruminate over it at the Irish Pub. There was a lot drinking and the girlfriends of the players would often get into competitive exhibitionism in front of the large picture windows. The idea was to see who could stop the most traffic on Route 30. It was fun time and of course there was there were the traditional Rugby songs. Those upbeat vulgar tunes that were meant to be sung by a loud drunken chorus.  

I was feeling no pain on that Saturday night and joined right in and sang along. In the middle of the second verse the whole bar dropped into an unnatural silence and pretty much everybody was staring at me. After a couple seconds that felt like forever, the Captain of the team finally said "hey man, you're making our music sound ugly".

I was a little indignant and wanted to ask how the hell that was possible? My friend Tom the Collector of Everything could instinctively sense potential problems, he turned me "here, I'll buy another drink, just sit this one out".

The peace was kept and the Rugby team went back to their song. We all got back to the business at hand, which was having a good time.

Do you ever feel they don't write songs like they use to?  If you listen to a collection of Top 40 hit songs from the 1950' and 1960's most of those tunes are perky three minute ditties. A study conducted by psychologist E Glenn Schellenburg and sociologist Christian Von Scheve concluded that popular music since 1965 has gotten progressively sadder and slower. More and more hit songs are now written in the sadder sounding minor keys with lyrics that are "self-focused", "emotionally ambiguous" with "mixed emotional cues".

It could be just another sign that we live in the age of irony. I know too many people suffering through what looks like a mid-life crises except they are half my age or younger. They'll tell me how their childhood sucked, how they're not ready for adulthood and several of them are in the middle of breaking up the "starter marriage". The soundtrack of their lives ranges from confessional ballads to screaming rage.

I wonder if my pitiful and plaintive singing voice has finally found its time. In a way that's very sad, I hate to think of entire generations that don't have a few happy and pleasant songs to call their own. Maybe my younger friends don't see happiness as right. They see it as small nuggets that are found after sifting through a mountain crap. That happiness and sincerity have become things they both mock and long for. It's troubling to think that sadness is so prevalent that becomes the only authentic sound.  

After some very limited research I found these are a few of the songs in my friend's music files.

   

Here's one song that could be the anthem of the minor key.

The Butthole Suffers have been around for over 25 years but are still going strong just beyond the reach of commercial mega success.



Eilen Jewell is one of those performers that may never get her day in the spotlight but her music is tight. 

I never really followed the Grammys, it always seemed the wrong be people got the big awards. Kimbra won for Best Pop Duo for her song with Gotye, Somebody That I Use To Know.

That song is okay but some of her solo stuff is so much more interesting, though none of it light and bubbly.