Please note that Dale has confessed to the fact that he spelled the name of Daisy Deane wrong when he started this thread. thread names are case in stone and cannot be changed, so he will have to live with the shame of his typographical error.
With your comments about mockery and condescension, Dale, you bring up an interesting point. I love sad, sentimental old songs like this, but many of them are SO sad they make me chuckle a bit. I suppose that sometimes I ham it up a bit when I sing songs like this, but I don't think of it as mockery. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think these songs were written to be sung for pleasure.
My son made a discovery when he was about 15. He said, "dad, now I no why people like to sing the blues. The songs sound so sad, but singing them makes you feel so good."
I think the same goes for the sentimental songs - I think they can be sung for fun, without mockery or sneering. It reminds me of my years in the seminary. We used to like to gather around a piano with a quartet that called themselves the "Rolling Lambs," and we'd drink beer and sing gospel songs. Now, they weren't the kind of songs we Catholics would sing in church, but we loved those songs nonetheless - even though we did sing them for fun.
Now, before chapel at night, we'd gather in the vestibule and smoke cigarettes and sing Engelbert Humperdinck songs - now, THAT was mockery.
-Joe Offer-