One of my favorite expressions is “You can sing it to the marines” I think it means “something is true, in fact very true”. Then, completely unrelated, I came across this video “The Helsinki Complaints Choir”, I could see that it was about ten minutes long which made me want to complain myself! Who’d be bothered joining a choir to sing their complaints and expect others to listen for that long?
Well – maybe it isn’t such a crazy idea. In Chicago they complain about “Airport security took my Mouthwash” In Philadelphia it’s “Nobody will throw the ball to me” In Birmingham it was “I want my money back, my job is a cul-de-sac” But the Finnish are the most realistic and sing about “the smell of pee on the tram”. Can you imagine what the Irish, the Greeks or the Portuguese would sing about?
The frightening thing that there is a Complaints Choir in Toyko, Philadelphia, Chicago, Florence, Hong Kong, Birmingham, Cologne and the list goes on and on and on. You can watch them all HERE. It will take hours, but then you can set up your own complaints choir in your town and complain about the length of the videos.
It all started with two “Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen – they collected the pet peeves of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko Grundström”.