I haven’t had many ideas which I felt worthy of writing down in recent times. In fact, I more or less cringe at some of the posts already put up here; they were unnecessarily personal, and not particularly noteworthy in any way. So I figured I might as well drop the pretence and post a proper anecdote for once.
A while ago, I attended what could be loosely defined as a social event. It seems that any such events comprising mainly of youths would almost certainly involve some corny attempt at romance injected into its activities. During one such activity, a friend failed at some forgettable game and her punishment was to select a guy to sing a song to her, which had to meet everyone’s approval before she could be let off. She chose me.
It was probably a strategic decision on her part. I am not a competent singer by any means, but she knew I was unlikely to embarrass her by singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or something stupid like that. She could have picked a far worse candidate (or so my fragile self-esteem hopes). As a metalhead though, I didn’t really know many songs that were.. singable. Out of the few that were, I eventually crooned out this one:
The “oohs” and “wahhs” from everyone, despite my pitiful rendition, suggested that they assumed it was a love song of some sort. Social etiquette (admittedly not a strong trait of mine) seemed to indicate that I shouldn’t disabuse them of the notion, so I didn’t. The English translation of the lyrics can be found here.
I’m reminded of this because I’ve just found out that Nightwish is set to perform in Singapore for the first time ever as part of their Endless Forms Most Beautiful World Tour. Symphonic metal has always been more accessible than most of its counter-culture peers, and frankly its not difficult to be a fan of Tuomas Holopainen’s fairly unique musical creations, no matter whether you preferred the more orthodox and operatic vocals of the Tarja Turunen era or the more avant-garde nature of her replacements’ since then. Nightwish isn’t the biggest band in Finland for nothing.
As fate would typically have it, I probably will have resumed my self-exile out of the country by the time they arrive. But I fervently hope enough of my countrymen show up at their performance and convince them to return at some future point. **And the signs are encouraging; VIP and Presale tickets have only gone on sale yesterday but are already all sold out**
For a quintessential Nightwish song that can actually be counted as a love song, see:
Softly Questioning 