Popular Songs.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 392, 10 August 1889, Page 3

Popular Songs.

It may bo laid down as an axiom that there can be no such thing as pleasure without pain — that is to say, f that whatever falls to our lot in the thape of happiness or enjoyment must inevitably be followed, sooner or later, by a corresponding amcfunt of grief, trouble, or unnoyance ot somosort or other ; and though this may seem a i % athev pessimistic view of things in general, it is nevertheless an undoubtedly true one of the subject of this article* And manifold ns are the troubles and trials of humanity, remedies more or less efficacious aye to be found for many of them, and Time, the great healer, may alleviate others. There remains one everrecurring trouble, common to all civilised communities, which appears to bo irremediable, and that is the excruciating: torture to which the sensitive ear is constantly subjected by the enfl less repetitions of a sons; that has once become " popular ;" and yet with what keen enjoyment we may havo listened to that Fame song from the lips ot some gifted singer, every faculty concontrated in drinking- in its inspired melody, and feeling as though wo were soaring upwards through the immensities ot spa co to realms celestial ; all that is highest and best in our nature expanding under Lhc magical influence of its entrancing strains., whilo all that is moan, sordid, or base disappears as if by enchantment ; and while the spell lasts we are absolutely happy, with a pure, lofty, and unselfish happine&F, such, perhaps, as is unattainable from any other earthly souice. The 6onj4 ceases; and as its last lingering note, at> though loth to leave us, dies slowly away, wo sadly lealise the fact that our aerial flight has been but a transient delusion, and from that moment our trouble begins: for the song becomes popular, and we hear it rendered in dvery imaginable tone of which the human voice i.s capable, fiom fche hoarse, croaking, bull-frog-like notes of the amateur basso Drofundo to the shrill screeching of the ancient vinegar visagod, cracked-\oieed soprano. The air is forced upon our unwilling ears from every possible kind ot musical'instrument, from the penny whistle in the alley, to the grand piano in the mans'ioa, wiih variation*, of the mos-l original and extraordinal y character, according to the'musical idiosyncrasies of the performers. "*" ' .- •" ' Ib is yelled, screeched, ami whittled by tho boys in the street in ear-piercing notes. Go wheie we may, there is no escape for us, our d roams arc haunted and our ret destroyed. It preys upon our mind until in imagination ita exasperating strains become audible in every movement of the element 15 , from the rustle of the leaves to the dashing of the waves. Its' undying echoes reverberate tlnough the air till driven co the verge of insanity hy it-, ceaseless repetition, the whole universe seems to i"ing nith one mighty, harsh, discordant, and demoniacal travesty of the song whose exquisite haimouy when it first fell upon our delighted ears gave us a feeling of plea&ure so e,\nlled as to be almost akin to ecstasy, but which h;ifc> now developed into an omnipresent funicular horror, filling us with dire, dark, nnd bloodthirsty longings to slay without mercy every man, woman, and child who hunisv-jiigs.* or whistles one bar of its maddening niu^ic. Boht.mian.