Singing Badly — Farce and Tragedy

March 1, 2021
Posted by Jay Livingston

Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Maybe, but sometimes it’s the other way round.

The woman who opened the CPAC meeting in Orlando with her rendition of the National Anthem* chose to do it a capella. As you can hear, that’s probably because the true pitch of an instrument would only accentuate her notes that fall somewhere in between the keys of a piano. Besides, no accompanist could possibly keep up with her unpredictable key changes.

Did she have a precursor? She did indeed. “Darlene Edwards,” a parody of a nightclub singer, was a character created in the 1950s by Jo Stafford, a pop singer with classical training. Darlene performed overwrought versions well-known songs like “I Love Paris” and  “Autumn Leaves.” She would hit off-key notes and add or drop beats in a measure, all the while accompanied by “Jonathan Edwards,” her real-life husband Paul Weston, playing a florid style piano you might hear in cocktail bars of the time. Here is how they destroy “Take the A Train.”

Jonathan and Darlene Edwards were clearly farce. The humor is based on the proposition that “this is not us.” And in fact they were talented musicians, and you get a sense that what they’re doing to the pitch and meter is far more difficult than a straight performance.

The CPAC singer’s two minutes on the stage is probably not tragedy, at least not according to literary definitions. But it is sad. There is no distance between the performer and the role. She even seems to think that she’s doing a fine job. **

There’s an obvious parallel to be drawn between her and the most important performer at the CPAC, a man who apparenly really does believe that everything he has done has been perfect. His performance too appeared to be farce, and it was easy to laugh at. Eventually however, it became clear that this was no laughing matter.

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* I still have no idea who she is. My searches on Google and Twitter turned up nothing. A Facebook friend said that she was the daughter or niece of someone who gives a lot of money to CPAC.

** I’m not sure where Florence Foster Jenkins fits here. Accorfding to Wikipedia, “The question of whether ‘Lady Florence’ . . .was in on the joke, or honestly believed she had vocal talent, remains a matter of debate.”