Scalzi's Weekend Assignment #33

The blogmeister [click on By the Way in Other Journals] is humming my tune this week.

You can have any person, past or present, sing any song for you that you want. What is the song, and who is singing it for you?

Extra credit: Name a singer you wish you could sing like, but can't. So that means even those of you with excellent voices have to pick someone you can't sing like.

My older daughter's godfather was the quintessential southside Irish football player from Chicago. Big as a house, square-jawed and handsome, with dark hair and steel blue eyes. As if to punctuate his heritage even more, he graduated from Notre Dame University, too.  

Danny and his wife started having kids around the same time we did, but in no time they were way ahead of us with four to our two. And a fifth on the way.  He was a great dad and we were honored that he was willing to assume the responsibility of godfather to our daughter. And then the inexplicable happened.  Only in his early thirties, he got lung cancer and died within two years. For personal reasons I wasn't able to go to his funeral but I know they sang Danny Boy for him. Every time I hear it, I'm reminded of a wonderful man who died too soon.

That's why I'd like one of the Irish tenors, Ronan Tynan, to sing Danny Boy for me. I don't think anyone can capture the poignancy of that familiar tune and make it sound like you're hearing it for the first time the way Dr. Tynan can. I'm sure he's recorded it, but I would like to hear him sing it in a huge cathedral on Danny's birthday, for Danny's friends and family, his goddaughter and me.

http://www.nyso.org/images/cdfront.jpg

EXTRA CREDIT:  I want Tony Braxton's voice. Might as well give me everything else that goes with it, too, except the bankruptcy thing. We have the same range, but that's where the resemblance ends.  Of course, it wouldn't be the same having a white chick singing Unbreak My Heart no matter whose voice she uses -- you just know she'd go shopping instead of suffering so much.  All the same, I'd like to give it a try.

http://rnbmind.free.fr/img_lite/tony_braxton/122858.jpg