Once, on an episode of Father Ted, the wise and wily Ted told Father Dougal that he could praise God by being very quiet. Or by leaving the room. Or by sleeping. At the time, Dougal appeared to be on the verge of singing Papa Don't Preach.
Like much that was said on Father Ted, there is wisdom to be mined from the remark. Leaving aside the matter of "the singing priest," a phenomenon that blighted my childhood and that of countless others, there is the issue of being sick to death of people opening their mouths to sing and others gawping at them.
It has gone too far. It is a sad fact of life that there are certain people whose dreams you don't want coming true. I mean those swarming masses of people, on several continents, whose main aim in life is to progress from singing in the shower/pub/karaoke bar to doing their singing on TV for self-important judges in a studio and an unsuspecting audience at home.
On Monday, it dawned on me: Enough with the singing. This happened after I read a triumphant release from NBC, announcing that, in order to compete with American Idol and the upcoming X Factor on Fox, it will have a singing show called The Voice of America. Our old foe Mark Burnett ( Survivor, The Apprentice, Sarah Palin's Alaska) is behind it. Apparently, Burnett borrowed the idea from the Netherlands, where a show called The Voice of Holland has enthralled the locals in recent months.
That's nice, but surely the Dutch can enjoy themselves to their heart's content without the rest of us being dragged into it. Besides, has anybody outside the Netherlands paid any attention to any Dutch person singing about anything since Golden Earring's epic story of Radar Love? "I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel/ There's a voice in my head that drives my heel." Great, keep on rockin' in Holland.
According to NBC, this thing called The Voice of America will charm millions and save the network. (To those of us of a certain age, the Voice of America means a U.S. propaganda radio station extolling the virtues of the American way of doing things. But never mind.) In fact, NBC's statement had a tinge of hysteria: "It's a bold move, it shows our confidence," the network's Paul Telegdy said. "But we've been busy fermenting a move into this genre for quite a few months. We've been at a state of DEFCON 2."
Now what, you might ask, is "DEFCON 2"? It is officially defined as "a defence readiness condition. DEFCON is an alert posture used by the United States armed forces." Specifically DEFCON 2 means, "Further increase in force readiness, but less than maximum readiness."
Obviously, this means war. NBC is taking it to Fox, and the singing-competition genre, big-time.
For us, it should also mean war. Enough. For every Susan Boyle, there are millions of people deluded and possibly demented by the idea of fame and wealth accruing from belting out a song on TV. The time to cut the caterwauling is now.
One can blame American Idol. One can blame Glee, which gave credence to the idea that half your life should consist of bursting into song. One can blame celebrities, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, whose nasal screeching on Glee still gives me shivers, and not the kind of shivers I like to get. One can blame Our Glorious Leader, who has set out to win votes by slaughtering pop songs at parties.
I ask you now, Who remembers any winner of Canadian Idol? I also ask you, What merit is there in countless TV shows that feature people doing cover songs? Has the principle of leaving it to the professionals become utterly redundant?
Look, I understand the appeal of the singing competitions. Regular folks who have a passion for singing and a great voice get their moment in the sun. They're people you can root for. You get to vote, so you feel you have a say in the entertainment-industry racket. It's peachy, but it's over.
And don't be writing to me to call me a curmudgeon. I like a good bit of singing. Just leave me out of the singsong or the sing-along. I go to the opera. No man on Earth is more admiring of soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. I have a fond spot for Mariza, even though I've no idea what she's singing about - a fisherman lost at sea, mostly, I gather. It's just that I've had enough of deeply uninteresting people inflicting their singing on television viewers.
If we can't curtail it, then surely a higher being can intervene. Possibly she already has. Simultaneous with the news about NBC's The Voice of America came news that most of the cast of Glee have been struck by tonsillitis. It is the higher being's way of telling them to shut up. Amen to that.