What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Mudlark
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 02:30 AM

Point well taken, Stewie, no argument. It's WHEN it's a power play that I really resent it, I guess because it is to my mind a debasement of things I care about preserving: authenticity, music, song, passion, the honesty of everyday life, etc. It probably deeply rattles my cage to know that such profoundly meaningful things can be calculatedly evoked, without heart.

And Don, as my grandma used to say to me, Honey you can have anything I got! At least so far as the printed word is concerned. And I loved that Jesse Fuller quote...it says it all for me.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 07:56 AM

You have to able sometimes to see past the singer and imagine what the song really has the power to say.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 08:06 AM

of course a singer/performer has to use his/her "power" to move the audience. And of course, to a degree, that power can be developed, practiced and improved upon. If not; 1) there'd be little live music to go see. (because) 2) the performer would only perform when "moved by the spirit" so to speak.

The spontaneous performance from the heart comes from hours upon hours of practiced sincerity.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 09:54 AM

The spontaneous performance from the heart comes from hours upon hours of practiced sincerity. That's not by any means true in many many cases.

Very often the important thing is for the singer to learn to get out of the way of the song, and that can take time, but it's not quite the same as "practiced sincerity".

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 10:32 AM

This really is an interesting question and has made me think deeply. I DO cry at some songs. There are songs I can't sing because my voice breaks up when I try, and yet there are those which make me want to puke, and, offhand, I can't work out what the difference is. Sentimental songs in the "Country and Western" genre I often find mawkish and sickly, but not always. Someone mentioned Eric Bogle as a sickening song writer. I went to a concert of his and was completely breath taken by the power of the emotion in some of his songs. Some of it, I'm sure, has to do with the sincerity of the feeling of the person who writes the song in the first place, but again, not always. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that I will be listening with a different ear in the future.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 11:18 AM

Wayne Newton singing "Scarlet Ribbons" in a Bonanza episode.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 02:02 PM

JEEZUS GUEST!! At first I thought you were joking....then I started thinking back....and ya know...I seem to remember that Wayne Newton thing on Bonanza.....Hmmmmmm...now that WOULD be enough for Hop Sing to poison the whole family!

A little more thinking back and I remember hearing Hank Williams' "I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You" right after a serious relationship break-up. Wow...the song's ultimate truth hit me like a ton of bricks....simplistic or not.

Maybe I can answer my own question by simply saying that "What's sentimental and what's sickening" depends on how yer feeling at that moment. Of Course if it's part of the folk repertoire, I tend to go a little easier with the value judgements, Ha Ha!

Cheers

Rick

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SOLDIER'S SWEETHEART (Jimmie Rodgers)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 03:17 PM

Just by chance today I clicked on this song on honking duck - said to be the first one Jimmie Rodgers wrote. I think it's as good an example as I can think of of a song that treads the line between sentiment and sentimentality, and never strays over it. Here is a link to Jimmie Rodgers singing it, via Honking Duck.

And here are the words and a story about it from another site, which is very well worth visiting. (I put them in here in case it goes down or something, not to save people the trouble of going there.)

MRS. CARRIE RODGERS: A pal of Jimmie's, Sammie Williams, told his sweetheart good-bye and went to France -- to be killed in action. So before the war was over, Jimmie found time to pick out words and air to his first composition, a sentimental song.... From the first his railroad buddies liked the song, and the young fellows in Meridian who were his boon companions liked it. With banjo, guitar, uke, they hung around the all-night places or strolled the streets playing and singing Jimmie's song along with 'Sweet Adeline' and other sentimental ballads. But it was not until some ten years later that the world heard -- and approved of it. From 'My Husband, Jimmie Rodgers,' reprinted in Dorothy Horstman, Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, New York, NY, 1976, p. 282

This song was recorded by Jimmie Rodgers at his first ever recording session for RCA Victor's talent scout Ralph Peer at 408 State Street, Bristol, TN, 4 Aug 1927 (released as Vi 20864). © 1927 Peer International Corporation Lyrics as reprinted in Dorothy Horstman, Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, New York, NY, 1976, p. 282-283

The Soldier's Sweetheart

Once I had a sweetheart,
A sweetheart brave and true.
His hair was dark and curly,
His loving eyes were blue.
He told me that he loved me,
And he often proved it so.
And he often came to see me,
When the ev'ning sun was low.

But fate took him away
To this awful German war,
And when he came to say goodbye,
My heart did overflow.
He says, "Goodbye, little darling,
To France I must go."

He takes the golden finger ring
and he placed it on my hand,
Said, "Remember me, little darling,
When I'm in no man's land.

He promised he would write to me,
That promise he's kept true.
And when I read this letter, friend,
I pray the war is through.

The second letter I got from him,
The war was just ahead.
The third one, wrote by his captain,
My darling dear was dead.

I'll keep all of his letters,
I'll keep his gold ring, too.
And I'll always live a single life
For the soldier who was so true.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 06:21 PM

a wonderful choice, McGrath....though it's written in the first person, it evokes a universal experience, rather than the "look what happened to ME" stuff that pervades many modern attempts to convey emotion and meaning.

Now I need to retire and think about exactly why that Bluegrass classic about the Rebel Soldier (Will My Soul Pass Thru the Southland?) offends me so much.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 23 Sep 02 - 03:31 PM

Bill, Maybe it would help to remember that “The Legend of the Rebel Soldier” is nothing but an Americanization of the venerable Irish song “Shall My Soul Pass Through Old Ireland” which in turn is a rewrite of “Bingen on the Rhine.”

Of course knowing that the song comes from an older tradition doesn't mean it isn't overly sentimental. It's interesting, though, to follow the development of such a sentimental theme.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 02 - 05:40 PM

Maybe the significant difference is that the Irish song was written at the time, within days of Terence McSweeney's death in a hunger strike; the American adaptation was written a hundred years after the Civil War, but written in period, so to speak.

Good songs can indeed be written long after the events they portray, but I think the best in that category will be coloured by what has happened since.They can be a way of making more sense for a later generation of what happened long ago, and what was happening at the time they were written, maybe. ("The Night they Drove old Dixie Down", for example, couldn't have been written back in the 1860s. It's as much about the 1960s.)

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Allan Dennehy
Date: 23 Sep 02 - 07:57 PM

I'm a sentimental old fool and proud of it! There are days when I can't sing the end of Galway to Graceland or Leaving My Nancy O without choking. That being said, there are plenty of songs out there that can make me lose my lunch. What was that WW2 (?) song about the deck of cards? Now that scores a big 10 on my pukeometer. And I'd still prefer someone who chokes on "Honey" than a person who never gets moved at all.

Subject: RE: What's Sentimental and what's Sickening?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 04:30 PM

Anyone who enjoys sentimental songs might also enjoy one of my favorite threads: The Saddest Song of All and its extensions and relatives. Those threads will separate the hounds from the jackels—sentimentally speaking.

      - Mark