Originally Posted by Lorelei Lee:
“I'm a hard-boiled old bird and don't sob easily at sad movies, reality shows, puppies on adverts etc - but that flippin' Military Wives song has me welling up every time.
It annoys me all the more because, as some of the braver posters have pointed out, the Military Wives aren't outstanding singers, nor is the song particularly brilliant, and the lyrics drawn from letters are fairly maudlin. So why is my apathy towards their skills - and, I should say, my dislike of the jingoistic attitude towards 'our boys' - so totally overridden by the giant lump in my throat?
The best job I can do of analysing why is to say, as others have, that it's the universal appeal to human emotions in the song that does it - the fear for their other half, the need to come across as brave and strong to reassure them, the words of support to spur them on etc. I can't listen to the song without thinking about women writing down these words and worrying about their fellas on the front line.
And that transcends all the other rubbish about what we're supposed to think, or asked to think, or forced to think. What we feel is a much better barometer of whether something is right and worthy, or not.”
Thanks to Lorelei for putting all the bitchiness of some of the posters on this thread into perspective.You can be brave about pointing out a few flaws in the performance, but still accept the performance and the reason for the choir's gig on Strictly. But moving from there to personal disgust that the choir sang at all is unbelievably rude. Badly done, those people, badly done.
This choir was never booked as professional or semi-professional - so why on earth expect a professional-standard performance? Recently formed for a well-publicised reason, not with a very large programme and not singing in the supportive atmosphere of Remembrance in the Albert Hall but as a time-filler in an atmosphere of glitz and tinsel - they did very well under the horrible circumstances.
How many of you know that butterflies in the stomach cramp your diaphragm, you can't breathe in properly, so you run out of breath, you lose control of pitch, etc etc etc and this would be especially true for the soloist., who should have been given a standing mike, not a heavy hand-held one.
The singers would have known there would be a couple dancing out front, and probably this would have helped rather than hindered.
From the TV viewer's point of view the audience were relatively well behaved, giving Flavia and Vincent some applause but nothing like the usual kindergarten caterwhauling. Sadly there were two determined whoopers. (Why has nobody yet shot the floor managers?)
So, in my family with members in the military in current generation and going back 5 generations, I support the choir's efforts and performance and hope that a lot of people will be prompted to buy the single. It doesn't have to make number one, it just has to raise money for a well-deserving charity and UK audiences are good at that.
In my most recent performance on stage in an amateur symphony orchestra, I and 79 other players gave it our all, and the audience demanded an encore. Why shouldn't amateurs perform in public? Sometimes what we produce is more heartfelt than the output of professionals and means more to the players.
That was certainly the case with Gareth Malone's choir. I just hope he doesn't drop them after Christmas in search of his next programme -or if he does, then a new conductor should be found for them. After all, they have only just found their feet.
