chicagodads

Fred Knittle, who played a central and climatic role in Young@Heart, a documentary movie based on the Young@Heart choir, died on New Years Day. Y@H is a group of retired people (average age, 82 or so) who travel the country performing their brand of rock&roll. Many of the songs are punk and all of them have to do - directly or indirectly - with loss, death, senility,and many of the complications and hurts of old age. The great part of watching the choir, for me, is seeing their authentic and felt interpretations of such lyrics as “we’re not little children” in Talking Head’s “Road to Nowhere” or just the slightly unsettling (and ironic, as these are some very active seniors) nursing home setting of “I Wanna Be Sedated” (btw, both of these songs have been turned into music videos and are readily available on YouTube). It’s at once very moving and very funny.

In the movie, Fred sings as a solo what should have been a duet, Coldplay’s “Fix You”. His partner, however, died shortly before showtime. I have a lot of problems with the song, starting with the fact that the lyrics sound like they were written by a melodramatic thirteen year old girl (or normal 14 year old Emo boy, take your pic). I mean, my good!, “Tears stream down your face”? That’s not a song lyric, that’s not even a description. But Fred sold this song. Watch: