Complaints Choir

On a cold winter day in Helsinki Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen fell into a discussion of how the huge amount of energy people put into complaining could be channeled into something else. In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression "Valituskuoro". It means "Complaints Choir" and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen said to each other:

"Wouldn't it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir?"

Thus was born the idea of the Complaints Choir. Listen to the Birmingham Complaints Choir by following the "video" link on their entry. You won't be disappointed. You will be wiping tears away, and you'll probably be singing their song yourself before long, the chorus of which goes:

"I want my money back,
My job's a cul-de-sac
And the bus is too infrequent at 6:30
Why don't they pay me more?
Life was good before
And I'm thirsty....."

When I got an e-mail today from Ian saying he is cleaning house and taking boxes to the thrift shop and garbage (presumably boxes of MY stuff) I was inspired to write my own complaining song. I'm going to shamelessly steal both the meter and tune of the Birmingham Complaint Song.

Tune up: lalalalalala, now all together!

Old Folks' Complaining Song!

I live on a pension cheque,
I've got a sore, stiff neck.
And my rotten kids threw all my treasured stuff out.
I think I'm going blind,
I have misplaced my mind,
And I smell bad.

Getting old ain't fun.
I should have cut and run,
When I was fifty.
Our health care sucks for sure,
No doctor's found a cure for being cranky.

The trailer roof still leaks,
My knees and elbows creak,
And what hair I've got has gone all grey and mousey.
My bowels are slow to move,
And I have lost my groove.
I need a walker.

Getting old ain't fun.
I should have cut and run,
When I was fifty.
Our health care sucks for sure,
No doctor's found a cure for being cranky.

The bus steps are too high,
The sidewalk's never dry,
And the clothes these days are just too damn revealing.
The music is too loud.
I'd like a smaller crowd,
And my head hurts.

The pace of life's too fast,
Viagra doesn't last,
And my toenails are too far away to cut them.
They charge for what was free,
Can't sleep - I need to pee.
No one listens to my stories.

Getting old ain't fun.
I should have cut and run,
When I was fifty.
Our health care sucks for sure,
No doctor's found a cure for being cranky.