Today’s Good News: Singing Seniors Give New Meaning To Coldplay, Outkast, Sonic Youth

The Young@Heart Chorus, of Northampton, MA, are the latest to prove that it’s never too late to learn something new and startle the people around you. They range in age from 73 to 92 and have been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture.”

An article by Jake Coyle of the Associated Press brought this phenomenon to my attention just now, but they’ve been around for awhile. Like the Ramones (who they also cover), they may be better known in Europe than the US. They were the subject of a British TV documentary, and a new film about them, “Young At Heart,” won two top prizes at the Rose D’Or film festival in Switzerland. They’ve reduced both hardened criminals and blase 20-year-olds to tears with their versions of songs like Coldplay’s “Fix You.” There is a really great video of them performing “Fix You” on YouTube (which has logged more than 500,000 views). I would share it here but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that as yet. Or visit their website to learn more:

http://www.youngatheartchorus.com/

Filed by Karen on June 16th, 2007 under Media, Music, Seniors