Complex Numbers

Facing the Music

Music certainly has the capacity to provoke emotion in me. It's one reason I started this blog, and one interpretation of the title.

PROMPT November 21^st

Tonight/today, listen to this beautiful song.



Where does your mind go when listening to this? What emotions surface as you experience the music? If you've seen the movie (Return To Me), tell us how this affected you. Has it changed you at all?

This one, however, doesn't do much for me. Oh, I don't dislike it, not at all. It's technically brilliant, and the particular version linked above is especially well done.

Where does your mind go when listening to this?

There was a particular musical style, popular mainly pre-Beatles, that featured the "crooner." Frank Sinatra was probably the most famous of these, but also Dean Martin, who originally sang the song in question. Maybe Sammy Davis Jr. Almost all of them ended up in Vegas.

A few years ago, I got to see one of them, Wayne Newton, perform there. Amazing vocal talent. You'd never know it from listening to him speak; his ordinary voice is kind of raspy and undisciplined, but as soon as he starts to sing, it's like magic.

Anyway, Tony Bennett was certainly in that illustrious company. People nowadays dismiss it as "lounge" singing, but it's a legitimate art form. So much of music these days emanates from talentless hacks whose only draw is their looks, or maybe their dance moves (not that dance doesn't require talent, but I'm talking about the music itself). Hell, even their songs are autotuned so they don't have to work on their voice, only their display. Me, I prefer to hear songs by people who can actually sing, even if they flub a note or two from time to time; that's part of the charm.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not ragging on "damn kids these days and their music." Some contemporary music is remarkable. There was plenty of talentless tripe when I was growing up, too (but without autotune); it just tends to be forgotten, much as many of today's acts will be forgotten.

Anyway, the point is, I believe that, as with movies, it's very helpful to have a sense of historical context when considering music, be it jazz from the WW2 era, folk from the early 20th century, disco from the 70s... or lounge singers from the 50s.

What emotions surface as you experience the music?

None, really. I have an appreciation for the talent involved, but the songwriting doesn't move me. I especially appreciate the spirit of international cooperation displayed; music has, as I've noted before, the capacity to bring people together.

Mostly, because it's a couple of old guys who are excellent singers, it made me miss Leonard Cohen. Now that's music that affects me emotionally.

If you've seen the movie (Return To Me), tell us how this affected you.

Not only have I not seen that movie, I didn't even know that the movie existed until I saw this prompt.

So of course I read the Cliff's Notes versionWikipedia page. There's no way to get the emotional impact of a movie from reading the plot synopsis (which I didn't mind doing, despite spoilers, because it's in a genre I tend to avoid anyway), but I was surprised to find some really big names involved. Surprised, because as you all know, I'm a movie fan, though my participation has waxed and waned over the years. I've always especially liked Minnie Driver as an actor, and of course David Duchovny is David Duchovny.

No desire to see it, though. The plot seems trite and way too mushy, like many romantic comedies. To each their own, of course.

Has it changed you at all?

I guess you could say yes, because I now know that something (the movie) exists that I didn't know existed before a couple of hours ago. I suppose it's possible I did know the movie, but forgot about it.

Still, I hope no one interprets this entry as "that song sucks and the movie looks like it sucks too." That's not my intention. It's kind of like with beer. I like certain styles of beer. Other people like certain other styles of beer. But that diversity is awesome, because it keeps beer companies in business. Likewise, different genres of movies and music keep people making movies and music; I'm always going to prefer some to others, while other people will have different preferences.

What a boring world this would be if we all liked the same stuff.