Unsent Letters by Heather Mark

Dear Britney Spears,

I’m so sad about today’s performance on Good Morning America. I was really hoping you’d learn your lesson from the “Gimme, Gimme” fiasco on the MTV Video Music Awards. While your performance was a little more well rehearsed than that disaster, it wasn’t all that much better. In fact, it was sort of boring.

I’m not trying to break you down, Britney. I really like what you do, I’ve even been known to rock out to a Britney Spears song  in my car from time to time. So I promise you, my constructive criticism comes from my heart, this is not hate mail by any means.

Here is the conflict I have with your career. You are 27 now, a mother of two beautiful boys. You’ve been through the wringer and left out to dry by your “people”, your family and the media. That abuse shows through in your performances. Maybe you’d want to concentrate on your voice and not your abs for a change. It was somewhat awkward seeing you prance around in skimpy outfits in front of your mom and children. And let’s face it, since having your kids you’re curvier than you used to be. The lycra just isn’t as hot as it used to be.

Maybe you could take a cue from Angelina Jolie. She’s an impeccable dresser, always sexy without being trashy. Cover up some of your skin instead of flaunting it, it would a new, grown-up direction for you.

I expect you’ll take my advice with less than a grain of salt. But I really like you, Britney. I want to see you succeed. I just think the avenues that got you to the top might not guide you towards your future. Happy birthday, dear. I hope it was a joyful one.

Your fan,

Heather

Dear Nashville Songwriters,

I’m not a country and western purist. While others criticize today’s trend towards pop and rock influence in the country genre, I kind of like it. (Except Taylor Swift. There isn’t even a hint of a cliche slide guitar or twangy yodel in her music. She just sounds so High School Musical to me.)

In the past few years there has been a trend in lyric writing towards the triple ententre. Yes, we’ve gone beyond the madness of the double ententre to the triple. I first noticed it in the Kenny Chesney song “There Goes My Life”. The character undergoes three different life experiences pertaining to the phrase “There Goes My Life” in each verse of the song. In the first verse he laments the inconvenience of an unplanned pregnancy in his youth. In the second verse, Chesney sings about how sweet it is that his little mistake has become an adorable little girl going off to bed. “There Goes My Life,” he says as she heads up the stairs. In the third verse he’s sending the little mistake off to college. As she drives off for the last time, you guessed it, “There Goes My Life”.

This formula is playing out too much. Please come up with something new. Poor Bucky Covington fell into the trap of the triple ententre with his latest single “I’ll Walk”. First verse, he has his first fight with his high school sweetheart and she doesn’t want a ride from him. “I’ll Walk,” she says. Verse two, she gets hit by a car that night and is hospitalized. “I’ll Walk,” she swears from her hospital bed. Third verse, she wants to walk down the aisle on her wedding day.

Enough with this sappy stuff! Bring back the songs about drinking and sin. There is no place for easy listening on my country dial.

A big fan,
Heather