-Brian Mendonça
Who do you think you are
Runnin ‘round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart.
Christina
Perri ‘Jar of Hearts’
I heard ‘Jar of Hearts’ over a lazy dinner with friends. I was struck by the title. Sung with verve, my
friend seemed to embody the pain of the song-writer. We could follow the lyrics
as they appeared on the huge karaoke screen.
The words of the song seemed to be melded in the morass of a
break-up between two young people. Ignored by the man who once loved her, the
woman accuses him of breaking so many hearts that he needs a jar to keep them
in.
Karaoke helps singers to unwind. A selection of over a
thousand songs enables them to pick the specific song to suit their mood. Backed
by a superb sound system (this one had Bose speakers) you can’t help get the
feeling that you are on stage. The karaoke even rates your performance and
gives you a score out of 100 – complete with fanfare of trumpets.
Karaoke singers cannot do without singing, even when they
are travelling. So they carry a nifty kit with the mikes et al so as not to miss a beat when they are away from home. These
can be connected to the existing sound system in the place they are travelling
to.
Karaoke is a big draw in restaurants. People young or old,
married or single, cannot resist the urge to belt out a tune and savour a
moment of glory. They have an appreciative audience, good food and the perfect
ambience to pour the songs into their plates. Popular songs, sung even
moderately well, get an (over)enthusiastic response once two pegs are down. So
much so that the karaoke singer hired for the night has to be content to look
on bemusedly.
Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue is credited with inventing
karaoke in Japan in 1971. He won the tongue-in-cheek ig-Noble prize in 2004 for
this achievement ‘thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to
tolerate each other.’
Christina Perri’s black and white YouTube video of ‘Jar of
Hearts’ (2011) is a powerful statement of a woman who fights back to save her dignity after
being spurned. She walks out on the man who wants her back. Indeed on her
website christinaperri.com she has tattooed on her right upper arm the words of
Shakespeare, ‘To thine own self be true.’
Perri (b. 1986) is an American singer, songwriter from
Pennsylvania. Assailed with feelings of suicide and depression, she implores,
‘It’s temporary. It’s always temporary. That feeling of free falling is always
temporary. It’s the practice of saying, “This is awful, but you will make it
through.” That’s what saves people’s lives.’
You’re gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don’t come back for me
Don’t come back at all.
- ‘Jar of Hearts’ (2011) Coda
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This article is
inspired by karaoke singers Haver Vaz and Martina Da Costa. Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on Sunday, 2 September 2018. Pix courtesy AOTY Album of the year.
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