Tuesday - Falling Slowly

I have three confessions to make to you. First, I must admit that I watch American Idol and enjoy it. Secondly I didn't know what I was going to write for today's post until about an hour ago. And third...ly I don't know how to use "ly" properly most of the time.

Tonight on American Idol, Kris sang the song "Falling Slowly" from the indie movie "Once". As I watched my favorite contestant croon through the beautiful lyric I remembered how much I loved the song, and the movie. But throughout the song I started to have thoughts that it was missing something, and by the end of the song I felt myself thinking "I didn't like it, it was just alright to me." What hapenned? I like Kris Allen, I love the song, this should have been my favorite moment of the show.

but it wasn't...

After the show was over, I watched the clip from "Once" where the two strangers are sitting down in a small music shoppe in England and the world was introduced to "Falling Slowly" via a trashed Takamine and a Piano. Everything came back, the emptiness that left my ears wanting during American Idol was being filled in again as if watching the whole thing in technicolor after only have a black and white television.

Why?

Because when the strange little man and his hobo guitar sat down with the pretty lady and her drag-along vacuum cleaner in the sterile flourescent lighting of a music store, there were no pretenses. The song was unpopular, raw, new. The two were discovering the song, relishing in its beauty and we got to watch it. They hardly knew what it meant, and we hadn't the faintest. We fell in love with that guitar and the falsetto note that caught us off guard.

We loved every minute of it, and wanted more

We went along the rest of the day singing it in our heads, bought it on itunes, told our friends about it, tried to learn how to play it. Not because it was "that song from Once", but because it was our song.

So when a make-uped pop contest hopeful closed his eyes and rendered the polished "Falling Slowly" complete with symphony orchestra and perfectly lacquered guitars; those who knew and loved the song said "OH I love this song" and then thought to themselves I have to watch that movie again. I have to listen to this song in color.

Listen, there is so much more to beautiful music than notes and lyrics, even emotion isn't everything. It's all. about. context.