Last night, my husband and I finally got around to doing something we' ve been meaning to do ever since Barry at our comic book store told us about it like three months ago: we went to the Dallas Museum of Art to see the World Won' t Listen exhibit by Phil Collins (not that Phil Collins, silly!).  If you haven' t heard about this, here' s a little clip about it from the DMA website:

"This Dallas Museum of Art premieres British artist Phil Collins’ completed three-part video installation the world won’t listen. Filmed in Colombia, Turkey, and Indonesia, the video trilogy features fans of the influential British indie-rock band The Smiths performing karaoke versions of tracks from their 1987 compilation album The World Won’t Listen."

Being the die-hard Smiths fans we are, we were so excited to finally see what this was all about.  We followed a hallway plastered with the foreign language posters that were used in advertising the karaoke project into a soundproof room; three soundproof rooms, in fact, all opening out into a hallway so that you could walk from room to room, or even stand between two rooms and watch two of the films at once, which is what we did almost the entire time. 

It was fascinating to watch how differently people interpreted the songs.  While one singer might be staring off to one side looking self conscious, another might be totally unselfconsciously imitating Morrissey--shirt unbuttoned, microphone cord swinging and all.  On one screen there might be a thirteen-year-old kid, while on another, a pair of women and a baby.  One person might make a sad song sound funny, while another makes a lighter song sound serious. 

Then again, sometimes it' s eerie how similarly three people from completely different parts of the world sing a particular song (for example, the beautiful, bleak "Asleep"--watching made me, for the first time ever, want to actually break down in tears while listening).  You could tell that many of these people were singing the songs as if the words were their own, and that sometimes they even seemed to forget where they were and what they were doing, and, instead, just lose themselves in the music.  Sometimes I even felt myself doing the same.

It was an incredible experience, and one that I hope to repeat often (much like the man I stood next to during several songs, who told me it was his fourth time) before the exhibit closes on March 23.  If you' re in the Dallas area and haven' t yet seen this amazing three-part film, and especially if you love The Smiths, please do.  It' s truly unforgettable.