Schmaltz

In a post on his blog, my brother reminds me that I once plugged the madrigal Allen-a-Dale into our MacSE's midi software. Good times.

I really enjoyed high school choir and especially looked forward to All-District Choir when all the kids would get together to belt out tunes like Allen-a-Dale and a SATB medley of Phantom of the Opera (a particular crowd pleaser).

I remember one year, the big finishing number was this song "Love in any Language." The lyrics are pretty incredible and include such sentiments as:

From Leningrad to Lexington
The farmer loves his land

and

The rhetoric of government
May keep us worlds apart
There's no misinterpreting
The language of the heart

That last bit is the bridge and we'd key shift on "heart" to, you know, really sell it. And just to make sure there really could be no misinterpreting, the entire all-district choir would sing the last chorus while simulateously signing it in ASL. I guess in case some deaf folks had decided to take in a choral performance that evening.

I remember being fairly affected by all of this - so much so that I'd completely repressed the memory until reminiscing over choir days with Mr. Wetherdeal.