Quirky Songs – If you can call them that! (Some say Novelty songs)

Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, and having a taste for all types of music, there were a lot of quirky songs that hit the airwaves. The type of song I am referring to are the really popular songs that are really insubstantial in terms of quality, but obviously they capture a generations imagination. Often these songs are one hit wonders. Whether the performers were unable to back it up with anything different or less quirky or whether they just took the money and ran!

The list of songs I present here is not necessarily my favourite songs or even songs I have any desire to hear again, it is merely a list of the quirky songs I have encountered in my life. Those with a bit of a review are the ones I can remember vividly, and yes I do sit here slapping my head to try and get those catchy but annoying tunes out of my ears!

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No longer an opera virgin

A performance of Lucia di Lammermoor Melbourne City Opera at BMW Edge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night we went to the Opera for the first time. We have been to musicals in the West End, seen the ballet, classical concerts and some opera singers with these, but never to the Opera itself. Now we don’t consider ourselves artsy fartsy or even overly cultured, we just like to vary what we see and do.

Our only exposure to a full Opera is watching Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, which we enjoyed, though we thought it was slightly long at 3 hours. The Opera we saw was Lucia di Lammermoor at His Majesty’s in Perth. Our first concern was what to wear, working in a professional environment I get dressed up for work every day, so I don’t want to get too dressed up on the weekend. It was also quite cold so we thought we would just wear casual comfortable clothes. Ooops so many people dressed to the nines, but that is their choice. We also wore warm clothing because of the cold, second oops, the heater in the theatre was set to high, and with a full house it became quite stifling. Gaining a migraine from the event was not something I had planned.

Anyway we got to our seats, on the third level but in the middle, and waited in anticipation. Fortunately there were subtitles in our field of vision our minimal Italian was not going to spoil the event. The show was split into 3 acts, with a scene change in each act. I am not going to go into the story as it is the typical love tragedy, similar to Wuthering Heights. The main singers were fantastic and the orchestra was really good too, though hard to see from our lofty position. All in all we enjoyed the show, and like Figaro, we felt it was very long. Would recommend it to people wanting to experience something different, but make sure you are well rested before so you don’t get the noddy’s like I did.