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Young@Heart

Old people singing songs about death is too uncomfortable to be uplifting

By Matt Pais

Metromix
April 9, 2008

Critic's Rating:

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In Northampton, Mass., the Young @ Heart Chorus--started in 1982 and featuring two dozen senior citizens with an average age of 80--practices for its next big show, which will feature songs including James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)," Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia" and Coldplay's "Fix You."

Big question: Can this documentary, a big crowd-pleaser at Sundance earlier this year, draw inspiration from these elderly rockers?

Skip it: Neither director Stephen Walker nor chorus director Bob Cilman explains the questionable song choices, so it's impossible to shake the morbid cloud that forms when seniors sing The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go?," Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere" and The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive." How can we be uplifted by a James Brown classic when the singer in fact doesn't feel good but actually has a painful-looking spine condition?

Catch it: If you think it's so funny that 83-year-old Joe Benoit doesn't know which side of a CD is up. Hey, in a few years generations will come along that never even own a CD!

Bottom line: It is, of course, fantastic to see people eager to get all they can out of their brains and their voices, even if it means singing pop songs when they really prefer classical and opera. But "Young @ Heart" gets nothing more out of its material, which might have been particularly compelling when the group performs in a prison yard had the movie tried to understand what this meant to the prisoners.

Bonus: Fred Knittle, who sings "Fix You" like a Johnny Cash tune, explains the lowness of his voice is directly proportional to how loose his pants are. Perhaps that accounts for Adam Levine of Maroon 5's killer falsetto!