This video was posted on Terje Fjelde's blog back in December, but I'm going to act like I thought of posting it first. I'm also going to steal my comment back from his blog and use it on my own.
Ladies and gentlemen, here's John Parr, the singer of 1985's "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)." I still like this song, but if you were expecting a newly acoustic version to be performed at the 2006 Children's Choice Awards in Sheffield, England, too bad. Instead, Mr. Parr sings ... well, see for yourself:
What an inspirational message for disabled children: If you try hard enough, you can accomplish anything—except singing. Don't push yourselves too hard when it comes to singing, kids. Don't wanna hurt the pipes, especially not at some rinky-dink charity event. I mean, the organizers should be grateful Mr. Parr bothered to show up in the first place, right? Also, kids, don't waste further energy by actually playing the guitar at an awards show like this one. What if a string were to break? Strings don't grow on trees, you know.
The American-flag design on Parr's guitar is interesting, as Terje pointed out, because the guitar belongs to an English musician who's performing at an event in England. Luckily, Parr still has a great mullet, and that's something every American can be proud of.
Well done, Robert! You're spreading the message. That's not stealing. You're doing a good thing here.
ReplyDeleteI actually bought one of his LPs, "Running the Endless Mile" (his career in a nutshell? 10 steps behind?) back in 1986. It wasn't at all what I had hoped for. But then again I was hoping for 10 variations on the "Man in Motion"-theme, which it didn't sound like at all at the time.
Now of course, it actually does sound like 10 variations on "Man in Motion"... time's a funny thing.
I haven't gotten all the way through it yet. But, i love the little fake swallow after he mentioned st. elmo's fire sort of built in for applause that never happened.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that too. And what's great is that he says he's not fond of the movie but still expects applause just based on name recognition. "Man in Motion" is a big slice of cheese, but Parr doesn't seem to recognize that. He could've cut down on the cheese content by playing an acoustic version, but no. As someone points out in the YouTube comments, he's playing some sort of 2003 "jukebox" version of the song, but does that matter? It sounds like a carbon copy of the original to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why this post from January is showing up as the second post in my RSS reader, but I'll use this opportunity to let you (and Terje) both know how much I love this clip, and how much I've held back posting it on my own site. :)
ReplyDeleteI think it showed up second in your RSS reader because I edited a few lines out of it last night. I'm always fiddling with these things.
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