Best wishes from the old white people

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

I will always love Kevin Costner

Hands up who didn’t cry watching “Bodyguard”!

Probably only Hannibal Lecter didn’t raise his hand. This is a kind of “ticket comes together with tissues” movie and the moment when your eyelids swell from crying, tears drop from your jaw together with your mascara, your lips contort and you sniffle disgustingly loud is when Whitney Huston sings “I will always love you” with flashbacks from Huston- Costner relationships on the screen.

The lyrics… well… it tells about… Precisely this is what it says.

The song has originally been written by Dolly Parton in 1973, who recorded it a year later and published it on the album “Jolene”. Since then, she re- recorded it numerous times, also in a duet with Vince Gill. With each new release, the song attacked the top of the Billboard magazine list and got to the first place a couple of times. Parton says the lyrics were inspired by her relationship with Porter Wagoner (hardly believable really).

However prized Ms. Parton was, it was Whitney Huston who made the song an international ever-green. In the “Bodyguard” version, she introduced the a capella intro, a pause (silence) in the middle of the song, a wider, more contrasted vocal scale and the saxophone. Till 1992, when Huston released her version, “I will always love you” seemed to be a sort of Dixie dance song, as almost all country then, coming from Nashville (not really a black region). Yet with the new version, it turned out how enriching the African- American input to Southern culture might be. 

The Huston's cover is memorable for one more reason, namely the video. Firstly, uhhhh, the suit, how I wanted to look like her in that suit! Secondly, Whitney sitting on the chair with her legs wide apart and a closeup on her lips vibrating! I don't think there's a vibratto in the song, but uhhhh, how I envied these red lips! And thirdly, Kevin Costner jumping to the freezing cold lake to save little Fletch - uhhhh, that's ridiculous!

Probably most of those who cried on “Bodyguard” felt that the song mirrors incredibly truthfully their own situation (particularly if these people where in their junior high schools and only understood the chorus part “And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always loooove youuuuuuuu”). It’s probably one of the most popular wedding songs (of course far behind Stachursky, ay!) – what again proves the miserable command of the English language. Probably it’s also one of the most popular soundtracks to sexual intercourses (desire befuddles the comprehension skills). Undoubtedly, it is one of the saddest love songs. And it's country! Surprisingly, Dolly Parton had this bitter talent so contradictory to all this glitter and sequins of hers.

And who’s crying now?